CNIV*  OF  GXLIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 

BY  JOSEPH  COOK. 


THIRTEENTH    EDITION. 

BIOLOGY.     WITH   PRELUDES    ON    CURRENT    EVENTS. 

THREE  COLORED  ILLUSTRATIONS.    i2mo  ....    $1.50 

"  The  attempt  of  sundry  critics  to  depreciate  Mr.  Cook's  science,  because  he  is  a  minis- 
ter, is  very  ill  judged.  These  Lectures  are  crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of 
argument,  illumined  with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  power,  spiced  so  frequently 
with  deep-cutting  though  good-natured  irony,  that  I  could  inake  no  abstract  from  them, 
without  utterly  mutilating  them. "  —  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Hill,  ex-President  of  JIan-ard 
University,  in  the  Christian  Register. 

"Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for.  No  other  American  orator  has 
done  what  he  has  done,  or  any  thing  like  it;  and,  prior  to  the  experiment,  no  voice  would 
have  been  bold  enough  to  predict  its  success."  —  Rev.  Professor  A.  P.  Peabody  of  Harvard 
University. 

"Mr.  Cook  is  a  specialist.  Ilis  work,  as  it  now  stands,  represents  fairly  the  very  latest 
and  best  researches." —  lleorge  M.  J3cartl,JITD.,  of  Kew  York. 

"  The  book  well  presents  to  outsiders  a  certain  little-known  stage  of  conservative  scien- 
tific thought,  which  they  cannot  reach  anywhere  else  in  so  accessible  and  compact  a 
form."  —  Professor  John  JlcCrady,  University  of  the  Smith. 

"By  far  the  most  satisfactory  of  recent  discussions  in  this  field,  both  in  method  and 
execution."  —  Professor  Harden  P.  Jlowne  of  JJoston  University. 


TENTH    EDITION. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM.    WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CUR- 
RENT EVENTS.     i2mo $1-50 

"Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  master  of  analysis.  lie  shows  singular  justness  of  view  in  his 
manner  of  treating  the  most  difficult  and  perplexing  themes." —  Princeton  Renew. 

"The  Lectures  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  and  powerful."  —  R.  Payne  Smith, 
Dean  of  Canterbury. 

"  They  are  wonderful  specimens  of  shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  thinking."  —  Ret). 
Dr.  Angus,  the  College,  Regent's  Park. 

"These  are  very  wonderful  Lectures."  —  Rev.  C.  II.  Sfmrgeon, 

"  The  Lectures  are  in  every  way  of  a  high  order.  They  arc  profound  and  yet  clear."  — 
Rev.  Alex.  Raleigh.  D.D.,  London. 

"  These  wonderful  Lectures  stand  forth  alone  amidst  their  contemporaries  of  the  class  to 
which  they  belong."  —  London  Quarterly  Review. 


JUST    RE  A  D  Y: 
ORTHODOXY.    WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS.   $1.50 


JAMES   R.    OSGOOD    &    CO.,  Publishers. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


ORTHODOXY, 


PRELUDES    ON    CURRENT    EVENTS. 


BY  JOSEPH    COOK. 


"  Es  ist  gar  nicht  zweifelhaft,  sondem  das  Gewisseste,  was  es  gibt,  ja  der  Grund 
aller  andern  Gewissheit,  das  einzig  absolut  giiltige  Objective,  dass  es  eine  moralische 
Weltordnung  gibt.  Was  du  liebst,  das  lebst  du."  —  FICHTE. 


BOSTON: 
JAMES    R.    OSGOOD    AND    COMPANY. 

(LATE  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co.) 
1878. 


COPYRIGHT,  1878, 
Br  JOSEPH   COOK. 


Franklin  Press: 

Stereotyped  and  Printed  by 

Raiid,  Avery,  £r»  Co., 

Boston. 


INTBODUCTION. 


THE  object  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  is  to  present  the 
results  of  the  freshest  German,  English,  and  American  scholar- 
ship on  the  more  important  and  difficult  topics  concerning  the 
relation  of  Eeligion  and  Science. 

They  were  begun  in  the  Meionaon  in  1875 ;  and  the  audiences, 
gathered  at  noon  on  Mondays,  were  of  such  size  as  to  need  to  be 
transferred  to  Park-street  Church  in  October,  1876,  and  thence  to 
Tremont  Temple,  which  was  often  more  than  full  during  the 
winter  of  1876-77. 

The  audiences  contained  large  numbers  of  ministers,  teachers, 
and  other  educated  men. 

The  thirty-five  lectures  of  the  last  season  were  reported  in  the 
Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Bacon,  stenographer,  and 
most  of  them  were  republished  in  full  in  New  York  and  London. 

The  lectures  on  Biology  oppose  the  materialistic,  and  not  the 
theistic,  theory  of  Evolution. 

The  lectures  on  Transcendentalism  and  Orthodoxy  contain  a 
discussion  of  the  views  of  Theodore  Parker. 

The  Committee  having  charge  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures 
for  the  coming  year  consists  of  the  following  gentlemen :  — 

His    Excellency  A.   H.    KICK,  Prof.  EDWARDS  A.  PAKE,  LL.D., 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  Andover  Theological  Seminary. 

Hon.  ALPHEUS  HARDY.  Right  Rev.  BISHOP  FOSTER. 

Hon.   WILLIAM    CLAFLIN,   Ex-  Prof.   L.   T.   TOWNSEND,   Boston 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  University. 

Prof.  E.  P.  GOULD,  Newton  The-  ROBERT  GILCHRIST. 

ological  Institute.  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

Rev.  J.  L.  WITHROW,  D.D.  Rev.  Z.   GRAY,  D.D.,   Episcopal 

REUBEN  CROOKE.  Theological  School,  Cambridge. 

Rev.  WILLIAM  M.  BAKER,  D.D.  WILLIAM  B.  MERRILL. 

RUSSELL  STURGIS,  Jr.  M.  H.  SARGEXT. 

E.  M.  McPnERSON.  M.  R.  DEMING,  Secretary. 

BOSTON,  January,  1878.  HENBY  F.  DUBAOT,  Chairman. 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE. 


IN  the  careful  reports  of  Mr.  Cook's  Lectures  printed 
in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  were  included  by  the 
stenographer  sundry  expressions  (applause,  &c.)  indicat- 
ing the  immediate  and  varying  impressions  with  which  the 
Lectures  were  received.  Though  these  reports  have  been 
thoroughly  revised  by  the  author,  the  publishers  have 
thought  it  advisable  to  retain  these  expressions.  Mr. 
Cook's  audiences  included,  in  large  numbers,  representa- 
tives of  the  broadest  scholarship,  the  profoundest  philoso- 
phy, the  acutest  scientific  research,  and  generally  of  the 
finest  intellectual  culture,  of  Boston  and  New  England ; 
and  it  has  seemed  admissible  to  allow  the  larger  assembly 
to  which  these  Lectures  are  now  addressed  to  know  how 
they  were  received  by  such  audiences  as  those  to  which 
they  were  originally  delivered. 


CONTENTS, 


LECTURES. 

PAGE 

I.    Is  THEKE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAR  ? 3 

II.    THE  TRINITY,  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH .  35 

III.  THE  TRINITY,  THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH 71 

IV.  THEODORE  PARKER'S  SELF-CONTRADICTIONS     .    .  99 
Y.    THE   ATONEMENT  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  SELF-EVI- 
DENT TRUTH 133 

VI.    THE  HARMONIZATION  OF  THE  SOUL  WITH  ITS  EN- 
VIRONMENT        169 

VII.    TRUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM 197 

VIII.    A  CONSIDERATION  OF  MR.  CLAKKE'S  AND  MR. 

H ALE'S  CRITICISMS 225 

IX.    SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 257 

X.    THEODORE    PARKER  AS   AN  ANTISLAVERY  RE- 
FORMER   • 287 

XI.  THE  SOURCES  OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S  ERRORS     .  317 

PRELUDES. 

I.    THE  THIN  END  OF  THE  ROMISH  WEDGE  ....  3 

II.    SECTARIAN  DIVISION  OF  STATE  FUNDS      ....  35 

III.  AGGRESSIVE  RELIGION  IN  BOSTON 71 

IV.  THE  TRANSMUTATION  OF  READING  INTO  CONDUCT  99 
V.    THE  FIVE  PARTS  OF  PRAYER 133 

VI.    MODERATE  DRINKING  AND  DISREPUTABLE  THEA- 
TRES     169 

7 


8  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Vn.  THE  POSSIBLE  USES  OF  CONVERSATION  MEETINGS,  197 

VIII.  CURRENT  MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  ORTHODOXY   .    .    .  225 

IX.  USE  AND  ABUSE  OF  CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP    .    .    .  257 

X.  GREECE  SINCE  HER  LIBERATION  FROM  TURKEY    .  287 

XL  LESSING'S  TEST  OF  THE  WORTH  OF  SECTS    .    .    .  317 


I. 

IS  THEEE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAE? 

THE    SEVENTIETH     LECTURE     IN     THE     BOSTON    MONDAY    LEC- 
TURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IN  TREMONT   TEMPLE   MARCH  19. 


"  Se  jndice  nemo  nocena  absolvitur."  —  JUVEWAL:  Sat.,  xiii.  3. 

"  Magna  vis  est  conscientiae  et  magna  in  ntramque  partem,  ut 
neque  timeant,  qui  nihil  commiserint  et  pcenam  semper  ante  oculos 
versari  patent,  qui  peccftrint."  —  CICEBO:  Milo,  23. 


ORTHODOXY. 


I. 

IS   THERE  NOTHING  IN  GOD   TO  FEAR? 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

HENRY  IV.,  in  smock  and  barefoot,  stood  three 
days  in  the  snow  before  the  palace  of  Pope  Hilde- 
brand  at  Canossa,  imploring  pardon  in  vain,  until  his 
penance  had  been  sufficiently  protracted  to  become 
a  symbol  of  the  subjection  of  his  nation.  Bismarck 
said  in  1872,  "Germany -is  not  going  to  Canossa 
physically  or  spiritually."  Nevertheless,  Bismarck 
seems  to  have  had  what  even  he  would  call  tolerably 
serious  trouble  with  the  Jesuits  of  the  latest  day ;  and 
Gladstone  assures  the  British  Empire  that  the  time 
has  not  yet  arrived  when  free  nations  can  profitably 
forget  the  schemes  of  the  power  behind  the  Papacy. 
That  power  will  not  disappear  when  the  present  Pope 
dies.  You  say  that  the  form  which  carries  the  scythe 
and  the  hour-glass  will  pass  through  the  Vatican 
soon,  and  change  much  on  the  Tiber.  But  the  power 

3 


4  ORTHODOXY. 

behind  the  Pope  made  the  present  Pope,  and  it  will 
make  the  new  one.  Pius  IX.  began  as  a  reformer. 
He  was  taken  in  hand  by  a  power  greater  than  his 
own,  and  he  ceased  to  advocate  reforms  in  the  Romish 
Church.  Jesuit  Ultramontanism  has  spoken  through 
him  ever  since  the  first  quarter  of  his  possession  of 
the  papal  chair. 

As  the  power  behind  the  power  of  the  Papacy  will' 
not  change,  perhaps  it  is  worth  while  for  us  to  ask 
what  that  power  thinks  concerning  its  prospects  in 
the  United  States.  It  would  be  entirely  in  order  for 
me  to  read  a  passage  out  of  the  famous  Syllabus  of 
Pius  IX.,  to  show  that  he  wishes  to  do  in  the  New 
World  what  he  endeavors  to  do  in  the  Old.  But  we 
have  more  definite  information  as  to  the  American 
plans  of  the  Pope.  I  hold  in  my  hand  an  interesting 
volume  just  issued  from  the  press,  and  written  by  a 
distinguished  lawyer  who  is  now  a  member  of  the 
cabinet  at  Washington,  —  R.  W.  Thompson,  —  on 
"  The  Papacy  and  the  Civil  Power."  In  it  (p.  119)  is 
quoted  a  highly  significant  document,  which  ought  to 
be  better  known ;  namely,  a  letter  written  by  Pius 
IX.  to  Maximilian,  when  it  seemed  probable,  in  1864, 
that  this  prince  would  become  emperor  of  Mexico. 
What  did  the  Pope  say  to  him  ? 

"  Your  Majesty  is  well  aware  that  in  order  effect- 
ually to  repair  the  evils  occasioned  by  the  revolu- 
tion, and  to  bring  back  as  soon  as  possible  happy 
days  for  the  Church,  the  Catholic  religion  must, 
above  all  things,  continue  to  be  the  glory  and  the 
mainstay  of  the  Mexican  nation,  to  the  exclusion  of 


IS   THERE  NOTHING   IN   GOD  TO  FEAR?  5 

every  other  dissenting  worship ;  that  the  bishops  must 
be  perfectly  free  in  the  exercise  of  their  pastoral  min- 
istry; that  the  religious  orders  should  be  re-estab- 
lished or  re-organized,  conformably  with  the  instruc- 
tions and  the  powers  which  we  have  given ;  that  the 
patrimony  of  the  Church,  and  the  rights  which  attach 
to  it,  may  be  maintained  and  protected ;  that  no  per- 
son may  obtain  the  faculty  of  teaching  and  publishing 
false  and  subversive  tenets  ;  that  instruction,  whether 
public  or  private,  should  be  directed  and  watched 
over  by  the  ecclesiastical  authority ;  and  that,  in  short, 
the  chains  may  be  broken  which,  up  to  the  present 
time,  have  held  down  the  Church  in  a  state  of  depend- 
ence, and  subject  to  the  arbitrary  rule  of  the  civil 
government "  (Appleton's  Annual  Cyclopaedia^  1865, 
p.  749). 

Two  things  concerning  the  conflict  of  papal  ideas 
with  American  institutions  are  very  clear :  first,  that 
we  cannot  resist  the  introduction  here  of  the  thin 
edge  of  the  wedge  which  has  troubled  other  peoples ; 
secondly,  that  in  some  way  we  must  resist  the  intro- 
duction of  the  thick  end  of  the  wedge.  [Applause.] 
You  say  that  I  am  about  to  be  narrow ;  and  that  I 
am  to  launch  myself  upon  a  theme  so  vexed  and  blaz- 
ing that  it  cannot  be  touched  here  and  now  without 
rashness.  What  I  assert  is,  that  somewhere  between 
the  thin  and  the  thick  end  of  the  Romish  wedge, 
public  opinion  in  America  will  by  and  by  call 
"  Hold !  "  —  I  do  not  know  where,  but  somewhere. 

What  is  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  ?  Yonder  in 
Charlestown  there  is  a  prison,  in  which  the  majority 


6  ORTHODOXY. 

of  the  convicts  are  Romish.  All  who  are  there  are 
wards  of  the  State.  They  are  not  under  the  care  of 
any  denomination.  Massachusetts  is  the  preacher  to 
those  convicts.  Massachusetts  directs  their  moral 
culture.  Massachusetts  is  not  denominational.  It 
has  been  the  opinion  of  Massachusetts,  that  she  had 
the  right  to  manage  the  instruction  of  those  convicts 
according  to  her  own  ideas.  Massachusetts  was  so 
narrow,  so  benighted,  so  sectarian,  as  to  suppose  that 
she  possessed  the  right  to  appoint  a  chaplain  over 
there,  and  to  instruct  him  to  teach  nothing  denomi- 
national, but  to  put  the  Bible  into  the  hands  of  the 
convicts;  to  organize  a  Sunday  religious  school, 
not  sectarian  at  all,  but  in  the  hands  of  all  denomi- 
nations ;  to  hold  devotional  meetings,  and  thus  train 
these  convicts  into  preparation  for  a  life  of  freedom, 
treating  them  in  all  ways  as  a  wise  parent  would 
treat  an  erring  child.  Massachusetts  thought  she 
had  a  right  to  do  that ;  and  that  is  what  she  did. 

Within  the  last  ten  months  there  has  arisen  in  that 
institution,  under  the  shadow  of  Bunker  Hill,  a  con- 
flict between  Catholic  canon  law  and  Massachusetts 
State  law.  It  has  been  asserted  there,  in  the  name 
of  Romanism,  that  Romish  convicts  must  not  attend 
the  Sabbath  schools  managed  by  the  State  chaplain ; 
must  not,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  go  to  the 
devotional  meetings  authorized  by  Massachusetts ; 
and  strenuous  objection  has  been  made  to  the  circu- 
lation of  Protestant  Bibles  among  the  convicts.  I 
am  now  reciting  facts  from  the  very  significant,  in- 
cisive, manly  report  (Massachusetts  Pub.  Doc.,  No. 


IS  THERE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAR?      7 

13,  October,  1876)  of  the  able  and  eloquent  chaplain, 
Mr.  Speare,  who,  I  hope,  will  soon  have  a  hearing 
before  a  committee  at  the  State  House  and  before 
Massachusetts.  [Applause.]  The  thin  edge  of  the 
wedge  is  being  driven  with  a  muffled  hammer. 
What  are  you  to  do  about  this  ?  Berlin  has  deter- 
mined, but  has  Boston  decided  how  she  will  treat 
Ultramontanism  ? 

My  impression  is,  that  Massachusetts  law  ought  to 
be  made  in  Massachusetts,  and  not  on  the  Tiber. 
[Applause.]  If  I  had  a  drop  of  sectarian  blood  in 
my  veins,  I  should  wish  to  open  the  dull  flesh,  and 
let  out  the  muddy  compound.  [Applause.]  I  want 
peace  with  all  members  of  society ;  but  I  want  first 
purity.  It  cannot  be,  it  never  will  be,  that  the 
American  people  will  submit  to  have  canon  law  en- 
forced over  American  law.  [Applause.] 

In  Salem  yonder,  a  learned  ecclesiastic  came  into 
the  school  board  not  long  ago,  and  brought  with 
him  a  number  of  volumes  to  show  what  the  canon 
law  is  about  instruction  such  as  can  be  permitted  to 
Romish  children.  The  other  gentlemen  on  that 
board  listened  to  him  for  a  while,  and  finally  said, 
"  My  dear  sir,  we  do  not  care  what  the  canon  law  is. 
We  know  it  is  against  our  proceedings.  You  are 
aside  from  the  point  in  showing  us  that  the  ecclesias- 
tical provisions  of  the  Romish  Church  will  not  permit 
the  sending  of  your  children  to  schools  in  which  the 
Bible  is  read."  Influences  public  and  private,  of 
such  a  kind,  were  brought  into  action  in  Salem,  that 
the  effect,  and  probably  the  intended  effect,  was  that 


8  ORTHODOXY. 

when  the  Bible  was  read  the  next  time  in  one  of  the 
most  prominent  of  the  schools  in  question,  all  the 
Romish  children  put  on  their  hats,  and  began  to 
shuffle  their  feet,  and  make  other  signs  of  irreverence. 
Those  scholars  remained  members  of  that  school 
about  fifteen  minutes.  [Applause.]  The  signifi- 
cant thing,  however,  was,  that  after  being  drawn  into 
ecclesiastical  Romish  schools  for  a  fortnight  or  a 
month,  the  children  were  found  to  be  making  very 
unsatisfactory  progress ;  and  the  parents  came  to 
the  school  board  in  many  cases,  and  said,  "  Take  our 
children  back :  they  will  behave  themselves  now.  If 
they  do  not,  treat  them  as  you  treat  other  children. 
We  desire  to  have  this  matter  settled  by  fair  vote, 
after  full  discussion.  Until  it  is  so  settled,  we 
hope  you  will  manage  on  the  American  plan.  We 
know  that  objections  are  made  in  ecclesiastical  quar- 
ters. But  your  schools  are  better  than  ours,  and  our 
children  must  have  the  best  schools."  [Applause.] 
And  then  in  a  whisper  they  added,  "  We  do  not  care 
as  much  for  canon  law  as  for  American  law."  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Now,  I  am  not  here  to  cast  the  slightest  odium 
upon  that  body  of  citizens  which  is  in  many  respects 
worthy  of  the  fame  of  Edmund  Burke,  and  Welling- 
ton, and  O'Connell,  and  Charlotte  Bronte",  and  John 
C.  Calhoun,  and  of  the  best  part  of  Horace  Greeley. 
[Applause.]  I  do  not  think  that  the  more  intelli- 
gent members  of  the  great  processions,  which  on  St. 
Patrick's  Day  passed  through  the  streets  of  our  chief 
cities,  are  inclined  to  put  canon  law  above  American 


IS  THEEE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAR?      9 

law.  I  believe  I  am  uttering  the  secret  sentiments 
of  many  such  men  in  this  Commonwealth,  when  I 
say  that  they  want  the  laws  of  Massachusetts  made 
on  the  Merrimack  and  the  Connecticut,  and  not  on 
the  Tiber.  [Applause.]  I  have  their  support,  I 
doubt  not,  when  I  say  America  must  resist  the  thick 
end,  that  is  the  Maximilian  end,  of  the  papal  wedge. 
She  cannot  resist  the  thin  end.  Every  thing  here 
must  go  by  count  of  heads  and  clack  of  tongues.  I 
am  glad  this  should  be  so,  if  only  the  heads  are  heavy 
with  the  results  of  fair  discussion,  and  the  tongues 
wise.  There  must  be  not  a  little  discussion  of  this 
topic  before  our  legislators  will  understand  that 
there  are  quite  as  many  Presbyterian  sittings  in  the 
United  States  as  Romish.  You  have  two  million 
Romish  sittings  in  the  United  States.  You  have  also 
two  million  Presbyterian,  three  million  Baptist,  and 
six  million  Methodist  sittings ;  and  my  little  denomi- 
nation, the  Congregational,  has  a  million  and  a  half. 
[Applause.]  There  are  votes  for  America  as  well 
as  for  Rome  [applause]  ;  and,  therefore,  let  politi- 
cians who  are  afraid  [applause]  remember  that  some- 
where, between  the  thin  end  and  the  thick  end  of 
the  wedge,  it  will  be  policy  to  pause.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

God  punishes  sin  no  longer  than  it  endures. 
Many  of  the  evils  of  disloyalty  to  the  nature  of 
things  may  continue  even  after  the  soul  becomes 
loyal,  as  many  of  the  evils  of  secession  persist  even 
after  a  State  has  returned  to  allegiance.  But,  so  far 


10  ORTHODOXY. 

as  is  possible,  the  forces  which  were  punitive  to  the 
disloyal  commonwealth  become  healing  to  the  loyal ; 
and  those  that  are  healing  to  the  loyal  become  puni- 
tive to  the  disloyal.  A  Personal  will  has  proclaimed 
an  unbending  enactment,  which  we  call  the  law  of 
causation ;  and  out  of  that  free,  holy  law,  arise  all  the 
blessings  and  all  the  pains  of  the  universe.  Sin's 
punishment  is  sin's  effect.  It  is  far  more  wise,  there- 
fore, to  ask  how  long  sin  may  endure,  than  to  inquire 
how  long  its  punishment  may  last.  Of  the  two 
methods,  the  Scientific  and  the  Biblical,  by  which  an 
answer  to  this  majestic  question  may  be  sought,  I  am 
here  shut  up  to  neither  the  one  nor  the  other ;  but  I 
prefer  always  to  put  the  Scientific  method  in  the 
foreground.  Let  me  say  once  for  all  that  I  do  so, 
not  because  I  undervalue  the  Biblical,  but  because  in 
our  time  the  wants  of  many  minds  are  best  met  by 
combining  Scientific  and  Biblical  evidence,  and  by 
making  now  the  Scientific  the  edge,  and  the  Biblical 
the  weight  of  the  weapon  behind  the  edge,  and  now 
the  Biblical  the  edge,  and  the  Scientific  the  weight  of 
the  weapon. 

According  to  my  view  of  the  Unity  of  the  Divine 
nature,  God  is  one,  as  we  meet  him  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  Oldest ;  in  the  New  and  the  Newest. 
There  are  four  Testaments :  an  Oldest  and  an  Old,  a 
New  and  a  Newest.  The  Oldest  Testament  is  the 
Nature  of  Things.  The  Newest  is  Christ's  Contin- 
ued Life  in  the  Present  Influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  Oldest  and  Newest  are  unwritten ;  the  Old  and 
New  are  written.  But  the  voices  of  the  four  are  one. 


IS   THEEE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAR?          11 

Singularly  enough,  too,  the  scenery  of  the  four  Testa- 
ments is  one  and  the  same  Holy  Land ;  and  he  who 
-does  not  feel  at  home  in  them  all  may  well  suspect 
the  thoroughness  of  his  knowledge  of  either.  Car- 
lyle  calls  Luther  what  the  future  will  call  Carlyle : 
"Great,  not  as  a  hewn  obelisk,  but  as  an  Alpine 
mountain;  unsubduable  granite,  piercing  far  and 
wide  into  the  heavens ;  yet  in  the  clefts  of  it,  foun- 
tains, green  beautiful  valleys  with  flowers."  This  is 
a  good  map  of  the  human  conscience  as  we  know  it 
scientifically.  This  too,  fairly  understood,  is  a  good 
map  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  the  New,  and  of 
the  Newest.  If  the  Old  Testament  Scripture  is  at 
once  severe  and  tender ;  if,  in  all  its  gnarled,  unsub- 
duable heights,  there  burst  out  springs  of  crystalline 
water ;  if,  in  the  inaccessible  ruggedness  of  its  peaks, 
we  find  green  places,  soft  with  celestial  visitation  of 
showers  and  of  dew ;  if  there  is  in  the  written  Word 
a  combination  of  the  Alpine  and  of  the  Paradisiacal, 
unfathomable  justice  matched  by  unfathomable  ten- 
derness; so  in  the  Newest  Testament  and  in  the 
Oldest  —  that  is  to  say,  in  History  and  in  the  Nature 
of  Things  —  we  find  in  the  deepest  clefts,  the  springs 
that  do  most  to  quench  our  thirst !  I,  therefore,  shall 
dare  to  ask  you  to  hang  over  the  great  chasms  in  the 
nature  of  things,  because  at  the  bottom  of  these, 
spring  up  the  waters  which  are  the  healing  of  the 
nations. 

Agassiz,  wishing  to  study  the  glittering  interior  of 
an  Alpine  chasm,  allowed  himself  on  one  occasion 
to  be  lowered  into  a  crevice  in  a  glacier,  and  remained 


12  ORTHODOXY. 

for  some  hours  at  mid-day,  at  a  point  hundreds  of  feet 
below  the  surface  of  the  ice.  After  gratifying  his 
enthusiastic  curiosity,  he  gave  the  signal  to  be  drawn 
up.  I  heard  him  tell  this  himself ;  and  he  said,  "  In 
our  haste  we  had  forgotten  the  weight  of  the  rope. 
We  had  calculated  the  weight  of  my  person,  of  the 
basket  in  which  I  rode,  and  of  the  tackling  that  was 
around  the  basket ;  but  we  had  forgotten  the  weight 
of  the  rope  that  sank  with  me  into  the  chasm.  The 
three  men  at  the  summit  were  not  strong  enough  to 
draw  me  back.  I  had  to  remain  there  until  one  of  the 
party  went  five  miles  —  two  and  a  half  out  and  two 
and  a  half  back — to  the  nearest  tree  to  get  wood 
enough  to  make  a  lever,  and  draw  me  up."  When 
habit  lowers  a  man  into  the  jaws  of  the  nature  of 
things,  it  is  common,  but  it  is  not  scientific,  to  forget 
the  weight  of  the  rope !  That  weight  is  a  fact  in  the 
universe,  and  the  importance  of  not  forgetting  it  is 
one  of  the  most  haughty  and  unanswerable  teachings 
of  science. 

Character  does  not  tend  to  final  permanence  !  You 
have  a  large  task  on  your  hands,  gentlemen,  if  you 
are  to  prove  that.  You  have  all  the  great  litera- 
tures of  the  globe  against  you,  to  commence  with. 
All  the  deep  proverbs  of  all  nations,  and  kindreds, 
and  tribes,  and  tongues,  are  against  you.  All  the 
established  truths  relating  to  habit  are  against  you. 
All  the  instincts  in  man  which  forebode  terrible 
things  when  we  let  ourselves  sink  far  down  in  the 
practice  of  sin  are  against  you.  All  subtlest  sorcery, 
by  which  we  forget  the  weight  of  the  rope,  is  against 


IS  THERE  NOTHING   IN  GOD  TO  FEAB  ?          13 

you.  The  Oldest  Scripture  and  the  Old,  the  Newest 
and  the  New,  are  against  you.  The  law  of  judicial 
blindness,  the  world  will  understand  by  and  by  as 
well  as  Shakspeare  understood  it.  In  that  day  your 
proposition  that  character  does  not  tend  to  a  final 
permanence  will  find  no  scientific  believers.  The 
results  of  evil  choice  in  character  are  effects,  but 
they  become  causes ;  and  so  every  act  in  itself  is 
an  eternal  mother  more  surely  than  it  is  an  eternal 
daughter.  The  weight  of  the  rope  !  It  is  as  unsci- 
entific to  forget  that  in  religious  science,  as  it  was  for 
Agassiz  to  forget  it  among  the  glaciers  of  the  Alps 
—  and  not  a  little  more  dangerous ! 

You  wish  me  to  look  fairly  at  all  the  facts  of  the 
case.  That,  and  only  that,  is  what  I  am  endeavoring 
to  do.  The  question  is,  whether,  while  I  am  doing 
this,  or  while  I  am  true  to  the  scientific  method,  I  can 
agree  with  Theodore  Parker  in  these  propositions :  — 

1.  "  There  is  nothing  in  God  to  fear  "  (PAKKEK, 
Sermons  on  Theism,  p.  210).     Really  this  language  is 
here. 

2.  "  If  God  does  not  care  as  much  for  Iscariot  as 
for  Christ,  as  much  desiring  and  insuring  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  the  one  as  the  other,  then  he  is  not  the 
Infinite  Father,  whose  ways  are  equal  to  all  his  chil- 
dren ;  but  partial,  unjust,  cruel,  wicked,  and  oppres- 
sive "  (p.  299). 

3.  "  Every  fall  is  a  fall  upward  "  (p.  408). 

Turn  over  to  the  last  and  most  emphatic  passage 
in  this  best  book  Parker  ever  wrote,  except  always 
his  attacks  on  slavery,  and  we  find  this  'as  the  con- 
cluding sentence :  — 


14  ORTHODOXY. 

4.  "  Suppose  I  am  the  blackest  of  sinners :  that  as 
Cain,  I  slew  my  brother ;  as  Iscariot,  I  betrayed  him 
(and  such  a  brother !) ;  or,  as  a  New-England  kid- 
napper, I  sold  him  to  be  a  slave:  and,  blackened 
with  such  a  sin,  I  come  to  die.  Still  I  am  a  child  of 
God,  —  of  the  infinite  God.  He  foresaw  the  conse- 
quences of  my  faculties,  of  the  freedom  he  gave  me, 
of  the  circumstances  which  girt  me  round ;  and  do 
you  think  he  knows  not  how  to  bring  me  back  ?  that 
he  has  not  other  circumstances  in  store  to  waken 
other  faculties,  and  lead  me  home,  compensating  my 
variable  hate  with  his  own  constant  love ! 

"  *  Come,  then,  expressive  silence,  muse  His  praise.'  " 

(P.  417.) 

Gentlemen,  Theodore  Parker's  practice  throttled 
kidnappers.  Theodore  Parker's  theory  nursed  kid- 
nappers. [Applause.] 

1.  The  theory  that  a  man  may  die  a  kidnapper  or 
murderer  of  the  blackest  criminality,  and  yet  be  sure 
to  come  out  right  in  the  end,  and  that  God  as  much 
desires  and  insures  the  ultimate  triumph  of  Iscariot 
as  of  Christ,  does  not  work  well  in  this  world.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

You  say  that  one  fact  does  not  mean  much ;  and  I 
am  not  asking  anybody  to  put  the  emphasis  on  it 
which  it  seems  to  me  to  deserve :  but  I  have  four 
tests  of  truth,  —  Intuition,  Instinct,  Experiment  in 
the  large  range,  and  Syllogism.  Now,  to  test  Par- 
ker's explicit  teaching,  that  a  man  may  die  a  kidnap- 
per, or  a  Cain,  or  an  Iscariot,  and  yet  be  sure  of 


IS  THERE  NOTHING   IN   GOD   TO  FEAR?          15 

coming  out  safe  in  the  end,  take  the  test  of  plain 
common  sense,  and  suppose  society  saturated  with 
that  belief  for  thousands  of  years.  Ask  how  it  oper- 
ates in  this  life,  in  long  and  wide  and  multiplex 
trial,  to  make  that  the  ruling  opinion  behind  law  and 
literature,  politics  and  commerce,  peace  and  war. 
Does  not  every  man  know  that  the  theory  that  "  it 
is  never  too  late  to  mend  "  relaxes  the  moral  fibres, 
loosens  the  strenuous  curb  which  mere  prudence  puts 
upon  greed  and  fraud,  and,  even  with  the  most 
thoughtful  and  conscientious,  inevitably  diminishes 
the  imperativeness  of  the  reasons  in  favor  of  good 
morals  ?  Theodore  Parker's  preciously  loved  Iscariot 
theory  hampers  —  to  be  perfectly  frank,  I  must  say 
I  think  it  hamstrings  —  society  !  If  a  theory  does 
not  work  well,  I  hold  that  it  is  scientifically  proved 
to  be  out  of  harmony  with  the  nature  of  things. 
Any  proposition,  which,  in  a  long  course  of  absorp- 
tion into  the  veins  of  the  world,  produces  pimples 
and  dizziness  and  ugly  ulcers,  is  not  good  food.  It 
is  not  made  for  us.  The  theory  that  a  man  may  die 
a  Cain,  an  Iscariot,  or  a  kidnapper,  and  yet  come  out 
right,  is  one  which  I  never  will  take  the  responsibili- 
ty of  proclaiming,  for  I  know  it  will  do  harm  (ap- 
plause) ;  and,  because  I  know  it  will  not  work  well, 
I,  for  one,  am  convinced  that  it  is  out  of  accord  with 
the  nature  of  things,  and  so  is  wholly  unscientific. 

2.  A  style  of  teaching  that  does  not  work  well  in  this 
world  is  adequately  discredited  as  a  guide  to  practical 
truth  as  to  the  next  world. 

Law  is  a  unit  throughout  the  universe ;  and  there- 


16  ORTHODOXY. 

fore  a  vrVid  sight  of  an  arc  of  experience  in  the  seen 
and  temporal  exposes  by  more  than  a  glimpse  the 
course  of  the  whole  circle  in  -the  unseen  and  eternal. 
Even  in  this  life  we  are  not  outside  of  the  range  of 
the  irreversibly  just  and  the  irreversibly  tender  laws 
of  the  nature  of  things;  and  therefore,  when  age 
after  age  puts  its  seal  of  condemnation  on  any  prop- 
osition because  it  does  not  work  well  in  this  world, 
I  have  the  right,  in  the  name  of  the  unity  and  uni- 
versality of  law,  and  of  the  principles  that  truth 
works  well,  and  that  what  works  well  is  truth,  to 
brand  that  proposition  as  unscientific,  and  as  there- 
fore not  to  be  trusted  in  its  relations  to  the  next 
world.  [Applause.] 

3.  From  our  present  point  of  view,  look  fairly  and 
with  your  own  eyes  at  the  central  objection  to  the 
theory  that  there  may  be  punishment  in  the  uni- 
verse forever. 

Do  you  admit  that  the  past  is  irreversible?  I 
hope  you  do;  certainly  I  do.  Very  well:  if  the 
past  is  irreversible,  there  are  some  six  thousand  years 
at  least  during  which  not  a  few  men  have  done  what 
conscience  proclaims  ought  not  to  have  been  done. 
Gentlemen,  that  record  is  to  last,  is  it  not  ?  "  Oh, 
no !  Oh,  no !  It  would  be  against  the  deepest  of  the 
liberal  instincts  to  suppose  that  any  thing  that  can 
cause  regret  and  pain  will  be  in  existence  when  the 
great  plan  of  the  universe  has  been  fully  executed." 
What !  a  record  having  in  it  all  the  Neros  and  Cali- 
gulas,  all  the  perjuries  and  leprosies  and  butcheries 
of  all  time,  and  existing  there  as  a  thing  that  ought 


IS  THERE  NOTHING  IN  GOD   TO  FEAR?          17 

not  to  have  been,  —  a  record  irreversible  and  inerasa- 
ble,  —  and  yet  this  give  no  regret  to  consciences  look- 
ing back  upon  it,  even  if  they  are  purified  ones? 
Gentlemen,  there  will  be  forever  in  the  universe  a 
record  of  every  sin  that  has  been  committed  in  it. 
There  will  be  forever  in  the  universe  regret  on  the 
part  of  all  consciences  in  the  universe  that  that 
sin  was  committed.  If  regret  is  pain,  there  will  be 
pain  in  the  universe  forever!  What  are  we  to  do 
with  these  provincial,  unscientific,  lawless  whippers 
of  syllabub  in  thought  [applause],  who  will  not  look 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  and  who  proclaim  con- 
stantly that  there  is  nothing  in  God  to  fear  ?  There 
is  much  in  the  nature  of  things  to  fear !  "  In  the 
last  analysis,  there  will  be  a  painless  universe !  It 
cannot  but  be,  that  all  things  will  come  out  as  they 
ought  to  come  out ! "  Indeed,  I  think  they  will 
[applause]  ;  and  that  is  why,  for  one,  I  stand  in  fear 
before  the  nature  of  things.  [Applause.]  I  am  not 
quite  a  full-grown  man;  but  I  am  afraid  of  the 
power  of  sin  to  benumb  the  moral  sense,  and  of 
the  tendency  of  human  nature  to  sin  repeatedly  when 
the  moral  sense  is  once  benumbed. 

I  am  afraid  of  the  weight  of  the  rope,  when  I 
lower  myself  into  the  jaws  of  Gehenna;  and  I  be- 
lieve solemnly  that  I  shall  never  cease  to  regret  any 
sin  which  I  outgrow.  It  always  will  be  to  me  a  thing 
that  ought  not  to  have  been;  and  my  future  will 
have  rays  of  bliss  taken  off  it  by  every  sin  I  have 
committed;  and  that  will  be  true,  no  matter  what 
God  does  for  me.  He  is  not  likely  to  change  to-mor- 


18  ORTHODOXY. 

row,  or  the  day  after,  the  natural  laws  according  to 
which  I  and  all  consciences  in  the  universe  must  for- 
ever and  forever  condemn  whatever  ought  not  to 
have  been. 

Look  at  the  fact,  the  mathematical  certainty,  that 
if  you  deduct  from  the  experience  of  a  man's  holi- 
ness for  a  while,  you  have  deducted  something  of 
absolutely  measureless  value.  You  have  poisoned 
him  for  once.  Now,  this  positive  evil  of  diminishing 
the  possible  bliss  of  that  man  is  to  last  some  time ! 
It  never  will  stop  its  course,  will  it  ?  "  There  will 
be  no  final  pain  or  permanent  loss  in  the  universe  ? 
Oh,  no ! "  I  affirm  that  you  cannot  take  out  of 
human  history  six  thousand  years,  and  give  them  over 
to  your  blackest  sins,  or  to  your  least  black,  without 
subtracting  from  the  bliss  of  the  universe ;  and  that 
this  gap  is  a  part  of  the  record  of  the  past ;  and  that 
you  never  can  fill  it  up.  That  gap  will  exist 

"  Till  the  sun  is  old, 
And  the  stars  are  cold, 
And  the  leaves  of  the  judgment-book  unfold." 

(BAYARD  TAYLOR'S  translation  of  a  Persian  hymn.) 

If  you  please,  my  friends,  this  universe  is  more 
serious  than  poet  has  ever  dreamed,  or  prophet  pro- 
claimed. Any  love  of  ours  for  what  the  nature  of 
things  condemns  is  dissonance  with  Almighty  God. 
If  we  are  not  glad  to  have  the  nature  of  things  take 
its  course,  we  are  not  glad  to  have  God  do  his  will. 
Whoever  reveres  the  scientific  method  will  never  for 
an  instant  forget  the  stern  facts,  that  all  the  past  is 


IS   THERE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAR?          19 

irreversible ;  that  a  record  of  sin,  once  written,  will 
endure  forever ;  and  that  a  deduction  from  the  bliss 
of  the  universe,  if  made  at  all,  is  of  necessity  made 
for  eternity.  So  has  God  arranged  all  things,  that 
no  tears,  no  infinities  of  the  Divine  tenderness,  will 
ever  cause  that  which  once  has  been,  but  which  ought 
not  to  have  been,  to  cease  to  be  a  part  of  the  record 
of  the  past  on  which  you  and  I  and  He  must  gaze 
forever  and  forever ! 

Carlyle  is  as  free  from  partisanship  as  the  North 
wind  is  from  a  yoke,  and  Boston  ought  to  hear  him 
when  he  speaks  of  Cromwell's  inner  sky.  Hampden 
and  Cromwell,  Macaulay  says,  were  once  on  ship- 
board in  England,  with  the  intention  of  coming  to 
America  for  life.  Milton,  Cromwell,  and  Hampden 
were  the  first  Americans.  "It  is  very  interesting, 
very  natural,  this  conversion,  as  they  well  name  it," 
says  Carlyle  of  Cromwell;  "this  awakening  of  a 
great,  true  soul  from  the  worldly  slough  to  see  into 
the  awful  truth  of  things ;  to  see  that  Time  and  its 
shows  all  rested  on  Eternity,  and  this  poor  earth  of 
ours  was  the  threshold  either  of  Heaven  or  Hell" 
(On  Heroes,  Lect.  VI.).  "The  world  is  alive,  in- 
stinct with  Godhead,  beautiful  and  awful,  even  as  in 
the  beginning  of  days.  One  Life ;  a  little  gleam  of 
time  between  two  Eternities ;  no  second  chance  to  us 
forevermore  "  (Lect.  V.). 

The  force  that  moves  men  to  deny  that  character 
tends  to  a  final  permanence,  bad  as  well  as  good,  is 
sentiment,  and  not  science.  It  is  a  form  of  senti- 
ment peculiar  to  luxurious  ages,  and  not  to  the  great 


20  ORTHODOXY. 

and  strenuous  ones.  Let  the  tone  of  an  age  change, 
and  this  sentiment  changes.  It  is  what  the  Germans 
call  a  Zeit-geist,  and  by  no  means  an  Ewigkeit-geist,  — 
a  spirit  of  the  day,  and  not  a  spirit  of  Eternity. 
Even  self-evident  truth  has  sometimes  very  little 
power  to  exorcise  what  reasoning  did  not  inculcate. 
But  it  is  the  business  of  Science  to  make  all  ages 
great  and  strenuous.  When  Science  has  done  her 
perfect  work  in  the  world,  the  lawless  liberalism, 
characteristic  of  luxurious  and  relaxed  ages,  will 
have  no  authority. 

It  is  scientifically  incontrovertible,  that  the  past 
cannot  be  changed ;  and  therefore  it  is  sure  that,  if 
regret  for  what  ought  not  to  have  been  is  pain,  there 
will  be  pain  in  the  universe  forever. 

This  planet  moves  through  space  enswathed  with 
light.  The  radiance  of  the  sun  billows  away  to  all 
quarters  of  infinity.  Behind  the  globe  a  shadow  is 
projecting;  diminishing,  indeed,  lost  at  last  in  the 
immeasurable  vastness  of  the  illuminations  of  the 
scene.  The  stars  sing  there ;  the  suns  are  all  glad. 
No  doubt,  if  Richter  was  right  in  saying  that  the 
interstellar  spaces  are  the  homes  of  souls,  there  is  un- 
fathomable bliss  in  all  these  pulsating,  unfathomable 
spaces,  so  far  as  they  are  regions  of  loyalty  to  God. 
There  can  be  no  blessedness  without  holiness,  and  so 
there  cannot  be  bliss  where  loyalty  does  not  exist. 
Behind  every  planet  there  will  be  that  shadow ;  and 
as  surely  as  there  cannot  be  illumination  on  one  side 
without  shadow  on  the  other,  so  surely  a  record  of 
sin  will  cast  a  shadow  forever,  and  some  part  of  that 


IS  THERE  NOTHING  IN  GOD   TO  FEAR?          21 

shadow  will  sweep  over  the  sea  of  glass,  and  not  be 
invisible  from  the  Great  White  Throne. 

You  would  be  true  to  self-evident  propositions. 
Be  true  to  the  certainty  that  the  past  is  irreversible, 
and  you  will  break  the  spell  of  the  unscientific  senti- 
ment that  there  cannot  be  pain  or  loss  in  the  uni- 
verse forever.  So  many  worlds  are  around  us,  so 
many  better  ages  are  ahead  of  us,  that  there  will  be, 
for  aught  I  know,  as  much  more  light  than  shadow 
in  the  moral  as  there  is  in  the  physical  universe. 
Let  no  man  proclaim  that  the  human  race  thus  far 
has  been  a  failure.  Let  no  man  exhibit  as  Christian- 
ity the  pandemonium  caricature  which  regards  the 
white  lives  that  come  into  the  world,  and  go  out  of 
it  before  they  are  stained  with  responsible  evil,  as 
lost  ones !  A  majority  of  the  human  beings  who 
have  appeared  in  the  world  have  gone  hence  before 
they  were  responsible  for  their  actions.  I  believe 
the  majority  of  all  who  have  been  born  into  the 
world  thus  far  are  in  heaven.  But  you  and  I  are 
forced  by  the  precision  of  the  scientific  method  to 
admit  that  the  majority  of  those  who  live  now  have 
not  learned  similarity  of  feeling  with  God ;  and  you 
and  I  know  incontrovertibly  that  without  similarity 
of  feeling  with  God,  salvation  is  a  natural  impossi- 
bility. 

Erratic  opinion  itself  teaches  glad  allegiance  to 
God  as  the  natural  and  inexorable  condition  of  the 
peace  of  the  soul.  Go  to  your  Ryder  at  Chicago,  or 
your  Chapin  at  New  York,  and  these  serious  teachers 
will  tell  you  that  they  everywhere  proclaim  the 


22  ORTHODOXY. 

necessity  of  the  new  birth.  Where  is  there  among 
the  more  sober,  that  is  the  later,  Universalists,  a 
man  who  really  possesses  scholarship,  who  does  not 
teach  the  necessity  of  similarity  of  feeling  with  God  7 
Dr.  Ryder,  however,  at  a  late  national  convention 
here  at  Lynn,  said  that  the  Universalist  churches 
have  not,  on  the  whole,  a  good  name  for  spiritual 
efficiency,  and  that  the  Universalist  ministry  does 
not  seem  to  feel  itself  charged  with  the  duty  of 
bringing  society  into  the  mood  which  science  pro- 
nounces to  be  a  necessity  to  the  welfare  of  the  soul. 
(See  "  The  Universalist "  of  date  of  the  convention, 
1875.)  He  criticised  this  ministry  for  lack  of  ear- 
nestness in  the  work  of  leading  men  into  similarity 
of  feeling  with  God.  That  convention,  although  it 
came  near  censuring  this  formidable  frankness  by  a 
formal  vote,  did  not  cut  its  own  throat  by  doing  so. 
Even  Universalism,  if  scholarly  at  all,  will  admit  that 
without  similarity  of  feeling  with  God,  salvation  is  a 
natural  impossibility.  It  knows  that  it  cannot  deny 
that  the  majority  of  those  now  in  the  world  are  not 
living  iif  the  love  of  what  God  loves,  and  the  hate 
of  what  God  hates. 

We  are  agreed,  therefore,  up  to  this  point;  and 
the  question  is  whether,  as  Parker  affirms,  a  man 
who  passes  out  of  life  as  incorrigibly  bad  as  the 
blackest  crimes  can  make  him,  can  be  assured,  in  the 
name  of  natural  law,  that  he  will  attain  bliss  at  last, 
and  that  character  does  not  tend  to  a  final  perma- 
nence ! 

Your  chief  objection  to  the  idea  that  evil  may  last 


IS  THEEE  NOTHING  IN  GOD   TO  FEAK?  23 

forever  is  drawn,  not  from  Science,  nor  from  Scrip- 
ture, but  from  the  characteristic  of  luxurious  ages,  an 
unscientific  laxness  of  sentiment.  You  affirm  that 
there  cannot  be  pain  in  a  perfect  universe ;  that  is,  in 
a  moral  system  where  all  are  free,  and  where  what 
ought  to  be  done  is  done  by  the  Ruler.  I  wish  to 
fracture  this  bowlder,  which  lies  upon  the  necks  of 
many.  This  vague,  easy  sentiment  has  behind  it 
nothing  strenuous  or  clear  in  thought.  I  have  done 
enough  to  throw  logical  discredit  upon  that  sentiment 
by  simply  pointing  to  the  irreversibleness  of  the  past, 
and  the  certainty  that  conscience,  as  transfigured  by 
the  salvation  which  you  say  all  men  will  attain,  must 
regret  forever  and  forever  a  record  of  sin.  I  have 
shown  that  there  will  be  loss  forever  and  forever  on 
account  of  all  the  sin  that  has  occurred,  or  that  is 
yet  to  occur. 

Having  thus,  in  the  name  of  the  scientific  method, 
thrown  across  this  misty  chasm  of  sentimentality  a 
single  thread,  will  you  allow  me  to  carry  over  on 
that  one  strand  a  cable  ?  When  the  bridge  at  Niag- 
ara was  built,  a  single  wire  was  carried  over  by  a 
kite,  and  on  that  wire  was  taken  over  a  cable,  and 
finally  a  -  bridge.  I  wish  to  span  this  chasm,  and 
beyond  all  controversy  we  see  that  a  single  wire  is 
carried  across  it.  Sin  having  once  entered  the  world, 
there  is  a  form  of  loss  or  evil,  and  there  is  one  form 
of  pain  which  we  assuredly  know  will  exist  forever. 
If,  then,  some  pain  and  some  evil  may  exist  forever,  and 
Grod  yet  be  good,  do  you  know  enough  to  say  how  mucfi 
evil  may  exist  forever,  and  G-od  yet  be  good?  [Ap- 
plause.] 


24  ORTHODOXY. 

Who  is  there  here  who  dares  to  say  that  he  is  wise 
enough  to  authorize  Theodore  Parker  to  hiss  at  the 
Scripture  on  this  theme  ? 

When  you  know  scientifically  that  one  thread  is 
carried  over,  how  do  you  know  but  that  the  cable 
which  the  Scriptures  carry  across  may  be  absolutely 
the  scientific  bridge  ? 

We  are  all  agreed  that  some  evil  may  last  forever ; 
we  are  all  agreed  that  God  is  good  :  and  now,  in  the 
name  of  the  fact  that  God  is  good,  you  desire  me  to 
say  with  Theodore  Parker,  that  a  man  may  die  a  kid- 
napper, and  yet  be  saved.  You  have  no  reason  at 
the  bottom  of  your  demand  on  that  point,  except 
this  sentiment,  or  the  feeling  of  the  luxurious  hours, 
and  not  of  the  most  illumined  days  of  the  world, 
that  it  cannot  be  that  any  pain  can  last  forever.  I 
say  some  pain  will,  and  you  know  it  will ;  some  loss 
or  evil  will,  and  you  know  it  will.  Is  it  not  high 
time,  therefore,  for  us  to  consult  some  other  author- 
ity than  that  of  this  scientifically  discredited  senti- 
ment? The  question  is,  whether  you  are  wise 
enough  to  estimate  the  amount  of  pain,  or  loss,  or 
evil,  which  may  last  forever  ? 

Apply  to  this  misleading  sentiment  another  and 
yet  sterner  test.  Suppose  that  the  world  were  not 
yet  created,  and  that  you  were  asked,  "  What  will 
there  be  in  this  moral  system  which  God  is  about  to 
call  into  existence  ?  Will  there  be  evil  in  it  ?  " —  "  I 
do  not  think  there  will  be,  because  God  is  good." 
—  "  Will  there  be  any  one  in  it  allowed  to  lose  peace 
of  soul,  by  falling  into  love  of  what  God  hates,  and 


IS   THERE  NOTHING   IN   GOD  TO  FEAR?  25 

the  hate  of  what  God  loves  ?  "  —  "  My  sentiments  as- 
sure me  that  there  will  not  be :  God  is  good  and  per- 
fect ;  there  will  be  no  imperfection  in  his  work."  — 
"  Will  there  be  in  this  universe,  which  is  about  to 
come  into  existence,  any  free  and  responsible  agent 
weighted  from  birth  to  death  with  inherited  bad  ten- 
dencies, which,  although  not  sin,  are  the  copious 
fountain  of  evil  choices  ?  Will  there  be  a  law  of 
hereditary  descent  by  which  beings  innocent,  so  far 
as  their  own  acts  are  concerned,  will  be  brought  into 
the  world  to  suffer  to  the  third  or  fourth  genera- 
tion, as  a  consequence  of  the  evil  choices  of  their  an- 
cestors ?  "  —  "  No,  that  cannot  be :  a  perfect  being, 
with  a  perfect  motive,  creating  with  a  perfect  pur- 
pose, never  will  call  such  a  law  into  existence."  — 
"  How  do  you  know  he  will  not  ?  "  —  "  My  cultured 
sentiment  is  all  against  it.  I  was  born  in  the  city  of 
Boston.  It  is  almost  a  violation  of  taste  to  suppose 
that  God  will  do  any  thing  of  that  sort.  It  is  too 
late  to  teach  in  the  nineteenth  century,  that  Infinite 
Wisdom  and  Power,  bringing  into  existence  a  moral 
system,  will  allow  to  exist  in  it  any  thing  which  the 
spirit  of  our  time  would  not  anticipate  !  [Applause.] 
Advanced  thought  cannot  admit  that  any  such  im- 
perfection will  exist  in  a  universe  created  by  a  perfect 
being.  God  is  good.  Evil  will  not  be  allowed  to 
begin.  I  am  sure  nothing  of  the  kind  will  be  found 
in  the  world.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  a  moment, 
that  an  Infinite  Being  will  permit  sin  to  exist  in  a 
moral  system.  I  am  willing  to  stake  my  eternity  on 
the  veracity  of  this  sentiment." 


26  ORTHODOXY. 

Turn  now  to  the  actual  facts  of  life,  and  what  is 
here  ?  What  Infinite  Wisdom  and  Power  and  Good- 
ness have  permitted,  and  nothing  else.  What  God 
does  not  do  cannot  be  done  wisely.  He  has  not  pre- 
vented sin ;  he  has  given  to  evil  as  well  as  to  good 
a  power  of  self-propagation ;  he  has  made  it  a  rule 
that  children  shall  suffer  as  well  as  be  blessed  for  the 
deeds  of  their  ancestors,  and  this  to  the  third  and 
the  fourth  generation.  It  is  a  fact  beyond  all  com- 
ment amazing,  that  sin  has  such  self-propagating 
power  as  to  spread  itself  from  birth  beyond  what  we 
should  say  is  the  range  of  responsibility  for  it,  and 
that  men  should  come  burdened  into  the  world  with 
the  offences  of  those  who  went  before  them.  But 
virtue  has  equally  great  and  even  greater  power  of 
self-diffusion.  Why  could  not  there  have  been  an 
upper  without  an  actual  under  in  this  free  world? 
Perfectly  innocent  is  many  a  maniac ;  perfectly  inno- 
cent is  many  a  cripple.  But  not  innocent  some  an- 
cestor whose  mischiefs  spread  by  hereditary  descent. 
God  allows  such  things  to  be,  and  yet  we  believe 
God  is  perfect. 

*  Archbishop  Whately  has  shown  elaborately  that 
all  the  reasoning  which  proclaims  that  sin  cannot  en- 
dure forever  proceeds  on  principles  which  prove  that 
sin  would  never  be  allowed  to  begin. 

Will  your  unreasoning  sentiment  stand  in  this 
light  of  science?  or  is  the  universe  perhaps  more 
complex  and  serious  than  you  dreamed?  I  affirm, 
gentlemen,  that  all  this  unscientific  sentimentality 
is  best  tested  by  taking  it  over  to  a  point  previous 


IS  THEKE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAR?  27 

to  the  commencement  of  our  present  moral  system, 
and  applying  the  reasoning  there,  fully  and  fairly. 
If  a  sentiment  indicates  the  truth,  it  will  work  well 
there.  When  I  go  enswathed  in  this  sentiment  into 
the  councils  which  preceded  the  formation  of  this 
world,  I  really  find  myself  in  a  minority  there. 
Incontrovertible  there  is  in  the  universe  a  different  plan 
than  I  should  think  there  would  be,  if  I  were  to  follow 
the  lead  of  this  sentiment,  which  is  the  secret  source  of 
the  denial  that  all  character  tends  to  a  final  permanence. 

Therefore,  my  friends,  as  this  sentiment  fails  us 
when  we  apply  it  to  a  course  of  facts  which  we  can 
test,  I  affirm  that  it  is  not  safe  to  take  it  and  apply 
it  to  a  course  of  facts  which  lie  beyond  the  touch 
of  the  human  spiritual  finger-tips.  .  We  can  reduce 
this  sentiment  to  absurdity,  by  applying  it  to  the 
time  before  the  world  was ;  and  therefore  I  fear  that 
it  will  turn  out  an  absurdity,  if  we  apply  it  to  the 
time  after  the  world  shall  cease  to  exist.  [Applause.] 

Yes;  but  ultimately  more  good  will  come  if  evil 
is  permitted.  What!  I  thought  you  did  not  be- 
lieve that  evil  is  a  necessary  means  of  the  greatest 
good!  I  assumed  that  you  adhered  to  Theodore 
Parker's  position,  that  conscience  pronounces  that 
evil  ought  not  to  be.  If  evil  is  the  necessary  means 
of  the  greatest  good,  then  it  ought  to  be.  [Applause.] 

In  any  case  you  will  obtain  only  a  painless  uni- 
verse :  so  we  come  back  precisely-  to  the  point  where 
we  stood  at  first,  or  to  the  certainty  that  your  marble 
staircase  takes  men  up  no  higher  than  your  red-hot 
iron,  and  your  red-hot  iron  no  higher  than  they  can 


28  ORTHODOXY. 

ascend  on  your  marble ;  and  so,  if  the  only  object  of 
evil  in  the  universe  is  to  take  men  up,  God  is  not 
benevolent,  for  he  could  take  men  up  painlessly  to 
the  same  height,  and  he  does  not  do  so.  That  is  the 
position  you  must  reach  at  last.  It  is  the  stern  scien- 
tific truth  on  this  theme,  that  you  have  no  ground  in 
this  sentiment  for  denying  that  character  tends  to  a 
final  permanence. 

Fill  the  ages  with  the  certainty  that  all  char- 
acter tends  to  a  free  final  permanence,  which  can 
come  but  once,  and  you  encourage  all  virtue,  and 
repress  all  vice  —  as  the  nature  of  things  does.  That 
belief  works  well,  and  so  deserves  coronation.  It 
puts  beneath  every  man  who  is  loyal  to  duty,  the 
everlasting  arms;  It  makes  him  glad  with  the  un- 
bounded confidence  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  thoge  who  love  God ;  and  serious  in  an 
equally  measureless  confidence  that  all  things  do  not 
work  together  for  good  to  those  who  do  not. 

Theodore  Parker  once  proclaimed  in  a  stray  pas- 
sage, that  violation  of  a  moral  law  may  be  so  bold 
and  persistent  as  to  bring  with  it  penalties  that  have 
no  remedy.  He  wrote  explicitly:  "From  my  own 
experience,  I  know  the  remorse  which  comes  from 
conscious  violation  of  my  own  integrity ;  from  trea- 
son to  myself  and  my  God.  It  transcends  all  bodily 
pain,  all  grief  at  disappointed  schemes,  all  anguish 
which  comes  from  sickness,  ay,  from  the  death  of 
dear  ones  prematurely  taken  away.  To  these  afflic- 
tions I  can  bow  with  a  '  Thy  will,  not  mine,  be  done.' 
But  remorse,  the  pain  of  sin,  that  is  my  work.  This 


IS  THERE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAE  ?  29 

comes,  obviously,  to  warn  us  of  the  ruin  which  lies 
before  us ;  for,  as  the  violation  of  the  natural  mate- 
rial conditions  of  bodily  life  leads  to  dissolution  of 
the  body,  so  the  wilful,  constant  violation  of  the  na- 
tural conditions  of  spiritual  well-being  leads  to  the 
destruction  thereof"  (Sermons  on  Theism,  p.  404). 

This  is  clear  and  straightforward ;  but  it  is  imme- 
diately explained  away  and  repudiated  by  its  own 
author. 

If  lost  souls  repent,  they  in  that  act  cease  to  be 
lost.  Will  lago  repent?  Will  Mephistopheles  re- 
pent? Will  Milton's  Satan  repent?  What  is  the 
definition  of  perdition  ?  Permanent  dissimilarity  of 
feeling  with  God.  That  definition  does  not  imply 
that  a  man  has  lost  all  tendency  to  respect  what  is 
reasonable,  but  that  he  never  attains  predominant 
love  of  what  God  loves.  The  failure  to  attain  pre- 
dominant love  of  what  God  loves  and  hate  of  what 
God  hates  is  perdition.  In  the  name  of  the  law  by 
which  all  character  tends  to  final  permanence,  all 
science  proclaims  that  lago  and  Mephistopheles  may 
fall  into  permanence  of  dissimilarity  of  feeling  with 
God.  Salvation  in  that  condition  is  a  natural  impos- 
sibility, for  salvation  includes  similarity  of  feeling 
with  God. 

Gentlemen,  we  want  truth  winnowed  by  being 
held  up  in  the  breezes  that  blow  out  of  all  quarters 
of  the  sky.  I  take  this  proposition  that  it  is  safe  to 
die  as  an  Iscariot,  and  I  hold  it  up  in  the  winds  that 
blow  out  of  the  centuries  of  Roman  degradation.  It 
suffers  a  winnowing  even  then,  for  the  winds  whisper 


30  ORTHODOXY. 

to  me,  "This  teaching  would  not  have  cleansed 
Rome."  I  hold  up  the  proposition  in  the  winds  that 
blow  out  of  American  greed  and  frand.  The 
answer  is  yet  more  decisive.  Safe  to  die  an  Iscariot  ? 
Safe  to  die  a  kidnapper?  Safe  to  die  a  Cain,  with 
the  blood  of  your  brother  on  your  forehead?  The 
scheme  does  not  work  well,  and  it  is  to  be  known 
scientifically  and  finally  by  its  inevitable  fruits. 

Thread  and  cable  across  the  chasm,  what  is  the 
bridge ;  and  this  in  one  word  ?  It  is  written  in 
Scripture  that  there  will  come  a  time  when  in  the 
name  of  the  nature  of  things  it  will  be  proclaimed, 
"  He  that  is  unjust,  let  him  be  unjust  still ;  and  he 
that  is  holy,  let  him  be  holy  still."  There  is  to  be  a 
day,  of  which  no  man  or  angel  knoweth  the  time, 
after  which  the  unholy  will  continue  to  be  unholy, 
and  the  holy  will  continue  to  be  holy.  On  the  last 
page  of  the  New,  as  in  many  another  page  of  the 
New  and  Old,  and  of  the  Newest  and  Oldest  Testa- 
ment, the  law  is  proclaimed  that  all  character  tends 
to  a  final  permanence,  good  as  well  as  bad,  and  bad 
as  well  as  good.  The  written  Scriptures  end  with 
this  explicit  declaration,  and  in  it  reach  their  most 
awful  and  their  most  alluring  height. 

In  the  great  words,  "  Let  him  that  is  unjust  be 
unjust  still,"  the  Greek  verb  implies  that  the  agent 
in  this  eternal  sin  is  wholly  free,  and  can  blame  only 
himself  (ALFOKD,  Rev.  xxii.  11). 

The  last  verity  proclaimed  in  Scripture  is  thus  the 
natural  permanence  of  moral  character,  and  the  cer- 
tainty that  all  crystallization  of  the  soul  into  final 


IS  THEKE  NOTHING  IN  GOD  TO  FEAE?          31 

permanence  will  bring  with  it  its  natural  wages. 
The  truth  that  I  am  afraid  of  is  what  all  science, 
what  all  Scripture,  what  all  human  experience  affirm, 
that  he  who  is  unholy  long  enough  will  be  unholy 
longer ;  he  who  is  filthy  long  enough  will  be  filthy 
longer  ;  and  that  inveteracy  will  lead  to  permanence 
of  voluntary  moral  remoteness  from  God ;  and  that 
this  will  be  its  own  punishment  in  the  nature  of 
things. 

You  are  at  war  with  the  nature  of  things.  Which 
shall  change;  you  or  it?  God  cannot  be  an  en- 
swathing  kiss,  without  being  also  a  consuming  fire. 
[Applause.] 


II.  - 

THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH, 

A    CONSIDERATION    OF    THE    REV.   JAMES    FREEMAN    CLARKE'S 

CRITICISMS.       THE    SEVENTY-FIRST    LECTURE    IN    THE 

BOSTON    MONDAY    LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 

TREMONT    TEMPLE    MARCH    26. 


"  Adfirmabant  autem,  hanc  fuisse  summam  vel  culpse  suae  vel 
erroris,  quod  essent  soliti  stato  die  ante  lucem  convenire,  carmenque 
Christo,  quasi  Deo,  dicere  secum  invicem,  seque  sacramento  non  in 
scelus  aliquod  obstringere,  sed  ne  furta,  ne  latrocinia,  ne  adulteria 
conunitterent."  —  PLINY,  Epistles,  Lib.  x.  Ep.  97. 

"Quid  verb  sentis  de  Us  hominibus,  qui  Christum  non  invocant,  nee 
adorandum  censent  ?  Eesp.  Prorsus  non  esse  Christianas  sentio,  cum 
Christum  non  habeant.  Et  licet  verbis  id  negare  non  audeant,  reipsa 
negant  tamen."  — RACOVIAN  CATECHISM,  Ques.  246. 


n. 

THE    TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

ONE  day  Prince  Bismarck,  rolling  in  triumph 
toward  Paris,  had  leisure  to  visit  a  country  school- 
house  ;  and  it  was  there  that  he  found  what  he  called 
the  saddest  sight  he  saw  in  France.  What  was  that 
sight  ?  Some  widow  with  a  starving  family  ?  Some 
maimed  soldier,  the  only  support  of  a  distant  home, 
about  to  be  left  in  destitution  ?  Some  human  form 
riddled  with  bullets  ?  None  of  these,  but  a  set  of 
school-books  filled  with  "lies!  "I  took  up  the  vol- 
umes," says  this  statesman,  "and  found  that  the 
tritest  facts  as  to  the  religious  history  of  Europe  were 
falsified  by  Romish  editors.  Scholarship  would  stand 
aghast  on  every  third  or  fourth  page,  at  the  mon- 
strosity of  the  misrepresentations  of  acknowledged 
historical  truth."  To  feed  the  rising  generation  with 
falsehood,  Bismarck  thought  a  sadder  thing  than 
battle-fields.  My  friends,  I  hold  in  my  hands  a  book, 
copies  of  which  were  lately  distributed  in  quantities 
at  Deer  Island,  in  Massachusetts  Bay  yonder,  by 
Romish  priests.  It  is  important  for  me,  as  an  out- 

35 


36  OETHODOXY. 

look  committee,  to  observe  what  passes  underneath 
the  surface  of  society ;  and  I  know  what  a  formidable 
frankness  I  am  exercising  now.  But  it  is  not  a  bit- 
ter frankness :  it  is  in  the  interest  of  straightforward 
discussion,  and  even  of  peace ;  for  certainly  it  is  in 
the  interest  of  peace  to  let  it  be  known  that  there 
are  some  things  which  cannot  be  done  in  America, 
and  which  therefore  had  better  not  be  attempted ! 
[Applause.]  Opening  this  volume  I  find  not  only 
the  boldest  violations  of  historical  veracity,  but  pas- 
sages plainly  intended  to  inflame  uneducated  read- 
ers: — 

"  In  1619  a  small  pool  in  Cambridge  became  as  red  as  blood: 
the  water  being  taken  up  into  basins  still  kept  the  same  color; 
and  many  signs  were  seen  in  the  air,  such  as  armies  fighting 
one  against  another.  In  1666  many  Protestants  prophesied  the 
downfall  of  the  Pope  on  the  2d  of  September;  and,  on  that 
very  day,  a  dreadful  fire  broke  out  in  London,  and  continued 
burning  three  days  and  three  nights  "  (p.  73). 

"  It  was  not  unusual  to  tear  the  nails  from  the  fingers  of  the 
Catholic  prisoners,  or  to  batter  the  heads  of  the  clergy  with 
sticks  and  stones  till  their  brains  were  open  to  view  "  (p.  38). 

"Have  not  the  Protestants  holiness  of  doctrine?  By  no 
means;  for  it  is  well  known  that  their  first  preachers  taught 
these  wicked  and  abominable  doctrines:  '  That  God  is  the 
author  of  ski ; '  '  That  man  has  no  free  will  to  enable  him  to 
avoid  sin; '  '  That  it  is  impossible  to  observe  the  command- 
ments ; '  '  That  the  most  enormous  crimes  do  not  injure  a  per- 
son in  the  sight  of  God  '"  (p.  19). 

"  Must  not,  then,  the  Protestant  Church,  instead  of  leading 
men  to  heaven,  infallibly  lead  them  to  hell?  We  certainly  have 
too  great  reason  to  apprehend  it  "  (p.  100). 

"  All  the  saints  who  are  gone  to  heaven  lived  and  died  Ro- 
man Catholics  "  (p.  55). 


THE  TRINITY   A   PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  37 

"  Having  taken  the  Devil  for  his  leader,  Luther  immediately 
goes  to  work  to  pull  down  the  Catholic  faith,  and  build  up  the 
Protestant  religion.  He  declares  that  all  the  Catholics  must  be 
murdered.  What!  can  a  man  who  was  mad  with  lust;  who 
lived  in  adultery,  and  caused  others  to  do  the .  same ;  who  wrote 
most  horrid  blasphemy,  and  corrupted  the  Bible;  who  was  a 
notorious  drunkard,  and  companion  of  devils;  who  was  as 
proud  as  Satan  himself,  a  preacher  of  sedition  and  murder,  — 
what!  can  this  wretch  be  compared  with  Christ  and  Paul?  If 
this  man  is  a  Protestant  saint,  pray  what  are  their  sinners?  " 
(pp.  63,  64.) 

"  Miracles  are  wrought  in  the  Catholic  Church.  We  know 
for  certain  that  she  comes  from  God ;  for  no  church  can  do  the 
miracles  which  she  doth,  except  God  be  with  her.  John  iii.  2  " 
(p.  81). 

If  you  please,  gentlemen,  this  delicious  food  for 
the  young  has  been  distributed  upon  Deer  Island  in 
plentiful  meals.  The  book  is  entitled  "  A  Sure  Way 
to  find  out  the  True  Religion,"  and  is  published  by 
Patrick  Donahoe  of  Boston.  You  will  not  be  sur- 
prised to  learn,  that,  after  the  character  of  this 
volume  was  found  ,out,  it  was  expelled  from  Deer 
Island  by  order  of  the  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  in  charge  there.  [Applause.] 

Ought  an  American  prison  to  have  two  chaplains, 
one  Romish  and  one  Protestant,  both  paid  by  the 
State  ?  A  law  has  been  passed  in  Massachusetts  by 
which  it  is  provided  that  freedom  of  conscience  shall 
be  guaranteed  to  all  inmates  of  penal  institutions. 
This  is  a  very  ambiguous  law,  and  one  that  was  in- 
tended, I  suppose,  to  be  ambiguous ;  at  least,  it  was 
engineered  through  the  State  House  by  E.  D.  Wins- 
low,  a  very  ambiguous  man.  [Applause.]  There  is 


38  ORTHODOXY. 

in  that  newest  legislation  no  abrogating  clause.  I  am 
assured  by  legal  authority  that  the  old  law  stands ; 
and  the  old  law  provided  in  a  very  sensible  way  that 
there  should  be  but  one  chaplain  in  one  institution. 
Ask  men  who  have  had  experience  in  this  matter, 
and  they  will  tell  you  that  two  chaplains  under  one 
roof  make  trouble.  The  practice  of  Massachusetts 
for  generations  has  been  to  put  but  one  chaplain 
under  one  roof;  and  there  is  no  marked  popular 
demand  for  the  change  of  that  practice.  The  old 
law  was  such  that  you  could  appoint  a  man  of  any 
sect  chaplain  in  a  penal  institution. 

The  demand  often  is  secretly  made,  and  in  a 
letter  lately  published  by  a  representative  Romanist 
("  Daily  Advertiser,"  March  22,  1877)  it  is  publicly 
made  in  Boston,  as  it  frequently  has  been  in  New 
York  and  Cincinnati,  that  in  each  penal  institution 
there  should  be  two  chaplains,  after  the  manner  of 
Austria  or  France ;  and  of  course  the  implication  is, 
that  in  America,  as  in  Europe,  both  should  be  paid 
by  the  State.  Yield  to  that  demand,  and  you  will 
have  a  division  of  your  public  criminal  fund.  What 
will  come  after  that?  The  proposed  change  means  a 
demand  for  the  division  of  your  school  fund.  It 
means  a  demand  for  the  division  of  your  church 
fund.  It  means  a  demand  for  the  division  of  your 
eleemosynary  fund.  Depart  from  the  American  prin- 
ciple, that  all  sects  shall  pay  their  own  bills,  and  you 
will  be  obliged  to  face  all  these  questions  that  have 
given  so  much  trouble  in  those  countries  where  there 
are  State  churches. 


THE  TKTXITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  39 

Of  what  value  is  it  to  tell  Americans  that  two 
chaplains,  each  paid  by  the  State,  are  commonly 
found  in  each  penal  institution  in  Austria,  and 
France,  and  Germany,  and  England?  There  are 
State  churches  in  those  countries.  We  have  no 
State  church  here.  There  is  not  the  slightest  finan- 
cial connection  between  State  and  Church  here. 
We  aid  no  denomination  by  funds  out  of  the  public 
treasury.  Romish  ecclesiastics  want  their  chaplains 
paid  by  the  State.  They  must  learn  that  they  are 
not  in  Austria,  France,  Prussia,  or  England. 
America  means  that  all  religious  sects,  Romanists  in- 
cluded, shall  pay  their  own  bills.  To  demand  that  a 
sectarian  chaplain  or  schoolmaster  be  paid  by  the  State, 
is  to  act  against  the  whole  spirit  of  American  law. 

Ought  American  policy  on  this  point  to  be  aban- 
doned for  European,  for  the  sake  of  improving 
prison  discipline  ?  Let  us  be  assured  that  there  are 
several  things  in  America  besides  prison  discipline 
which  the  Romish  power  desires  to  improve.  What 
will  be  the  result  of  granting  to  one  sect  State  aid  ? 
Has  the  sect  which  asks  such  exceptional  assistance 
been  exceptionally  efficient  in  preventing  ignorance, 
pauperism,  and  crime  ?  Are  a  majority  of  our  con- 
victs Romish?  If  that  fact  at  first  sight  seems  to 
favor  the  appointment  of  Romish  chaplains  paid  by 
the  State,  has  it  not  at  second  sight  a  look  which 
hints  at  a  truth  pointing  in  quite  an  opposite  direc- 
tion ?  We  must  face  all  the  facts,  and  I  see  the  force 
of  the  few  vastly  outweighed  considerations  that 
may  be  urged  in  favor  of  the  European  plan.  Of 


40  ORTHODOXY. 

course,  prisoners  like  best  the  religious  instruction 
to  which,  they  have  been  accustomed ;  but  all  infelici- 
ties on  that  point  can  be  removed  from  prison  disci- 
pline without  sectarian  legislation.  I  am  not  making 
objection  to  Romish  priests  at  Charlestown  appearing 
there,  and  being  of  solace  to  Romish  convicts.  My 
proposition  is,  that  we  had  better  not  depart  from 
the  American  principle  that  all  religious  sects,  Roma- 
nists included,  must  pay  their  own  bills.  [Applause.] 
I  object  to  a  division  of  State  funds  among  secta- 
rian State  chaplains,  and  this  because  the  precedent 
would  be  the  entering  wedge  for  a  sectarian  division 
of  the  school  fund.  Of  course  I  expect  no  credit 
for  advocating  that  proposition  until  about  fifty 
years  hence.  I  speak  for  to-morrow,  and  not  for 
to-day. 

Are  Romish  children  in  Romish  schools,  and  Rom- 
ish convicts  under  Romish  chaplains,  to  have  books 
of  this  sort  put  into  their  hands  by  State  money? 
It  is  perfectly  pertinent  for  Massachusetts  to  ask 
whether  Bismarck  was  right  in  saying  that  the  saddest 
sight  he  saw  was  this  misleading  of  the  uneducated 
by  the  monstrous  claim  that  all  history  is  against 
Protestantism  and  in  favor  of  Romanism,  and  by  in- 
citing the  prejudices  and  inflaming  the  passions  of 
the  uneducated.  Is  it  not  a  thing  to  be  punctured  as 
a  bubble  not  of  a  glittering  sort,  —  the  claim  made  by 
Romish  leaders  that  the  Protestant  Bible  is  no  Bible 
at  all?  The  scholarship  of  the  world  has  ridiculed 
this  claim  for  the  last  three  hundred  years.  It  is 
admitted  that  strenuous  objection  had  been  made 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  41 

to  the  circulation  of  Protestant  Bibles  among* the 
Catholic  convicts  yonder  under  the  shadow  of  Bun- 
ker Hill ;  and  the  astounding  assertion  is  put  forward 
that  the  Protestant  Bible  is  no  Bible  at  all.  (See 
"  Advertiser,"  letter  of  Mr.  Tuckerman,  March  22.) 
Such  a  statement  as  that  is  for  the  uneducated,  and 
not  for  the  intelligent  masses. 

What,  then,  is  the  outcome  of  this  question? 
American  policy  and  papal  policy  differ.  It  is  sus- 
ceptible of  the  most  exact  documentary  proof,  that 
the  troubles  we  are  on  the  edge  of  about  our  public 
schools  and  penal  institutions  are  substantially  the 
result  of  the  conflict  between  Romish  canon  law 
and  American  national  law.  When  a  bishop  in  the 
Romish  Church  takes  the  oath  of  his  office,  the  act, 
as  Bismarck  and  Gladstone  understand  well,  is  by  no 
means  a  mere  form,  but  it  makes  Romish  ecclesiasti- 
cism  —  I  do  not  speak  of  the  Catholic  masses  —  a 
compact  organization  indisputably  owing  its  -  first 
allegiance  to  a  power  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber. 

The  following  is  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Pope, 
taken  by  every  archbishop  and  bishop,  and  by  all  who 
are  elevated  to  positions  of  official  dignity  by  the 
Pope : — 

"I,  N.,  elect  of  the  Church  of  N.,  from  henceforward  will 
be  faithful  and  obedient  to  St.  Peter  the  Apostle,  and  to  the 
Holy  Roman  Church,  and  to  our  Lord,  the  Lord  N.,  Pope  N., 
and  to  his  successors  canonically  entering.  ...  I  will  help 
them  to  defend  and  keep  the  Roman  Papacy,  and  the  royalties 
of  St.  Peter,  saving  my  order  against  all  men.  .  .  .  The  rights, 
honors,  privileges,  and  authority  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  of 


42  ORTHODOXY. 

our  Lord  the  Pope,  and  his  aforesaid  successors,  I  will  endeavor 
to  preserve,  defend,  increase,  and  advance.  .  .  .  Heretics,  schis- 
matics, and  rebels  to  our  said  Lord,  or  his  aforesaid  successors,  I 
will  to  my  utmost  persecute  and  oppose.  ...  I  will,  by  myself 
in  person,  visit  the  threshold  of  the  Apostles  every  three  years, 
and  give  an  account  to  our  Lord  and  his  aforesaid  successors  of 
all  my  pastoral  office,  and  of  all  things  anywise  belonging  to  the 
state  of  my  church,  to  the  discipline  of  my  clergy  and  people, 
and  lastly  to  the  salvation  of  souls  committed  to  my  trust;  and 
will  in  like  manner  humbly  receive  and  diligently  execute  the 
apostolic  commands"  (DOWLING'S  History  of  Romanism,  pp. 
615,  616.  See  also  THOMPSON,  R.  W.,  The  Papacy  and  the 
Civil  Power,  p.  717). 

Gentlemen,  the  order  of  the  Romish  priesthood  is 
an  historical  body  of  which  it  is  trite  to  say  that  its 
organization  is  astonishingly  perfect,  and  that  its 
power  in  the  cities  of  America  is  not  likely  to  dimin- 
ish speedily  if  left  without  check  from  enlightened 
public  sentiment.  These  swarming  ecclesiastics  do 
not  carry  weight  in  the  race  of  life ;  they  are 
bachelors,  and  bachelors  are  dangerous  men  in  the 
world.  They  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  attend 
to  their  public  duties.  It  is  therefore  something 
worth  remembering,  that  all  these  detached  priests 
among  the  nations,  or  the  ringers  on  every  continent, 
are  attached  to  one  palm  and  one  wrist ;  and  that 
this  is  the  power  on  the  Tiber.  I  wish  to  draw  a 
wide  distinction  between  Romish  citizens  and  Romish 
ecclesiastics.  There  is  nothing  sure,  if  it  is  not  cer- 
tain that  the  allegiance  of  the  Romish  ecclesiastics  is 
not  first  national,  but  first  papal.  First  a  Catholic, 
next  a  German:  that  has  been  the  secret  watch- 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  43 

word  of  the  Ultramontane  party  in  Germany  in  the 
last  ten  years.  That  has  been  the  political  creed 
which  Bismarck  has  been  ready  to  contradict  at  the 
cannon's  mouth.  First  an  Englishman,  or  first  a 
Catholic  ?  First  a  Romanist,  or  first  an  American  ? 
That  is  the  old  question  which  has  been  debated 
ever  since  the  time  of  Philip  the  Fair. 

Pope  Boniface  wrote  to  Philip  the  Fair  of  France, 
when  France  was  really  more  Protestant  than  now, 
this  letter:  "Pope  Boniface  to  Philip  the  Fair,  sends 
greeting:  O  Supreme  Pontiff,  know  that  thou  art 
subject  to  us  in  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual  things." 
Philip  the  Fair  replied,  "  Philip  to  Boniface,  little  or 
no  greeting:  Know  thou,  O  supreme  fool,  that  in 
temporal  things  we  are  not  subject  to  any  one." 
[Applause.]  France  echoed  the  scorn  of  Philip  the 
Fair  to  the  claim  to  universal  temporal  power  on  the 
part  of  the  Pope,  but  to-day  she  is  under  the  control 
of  the  Ultramontane  party.  Germany  stands  now 
where  Philip  the  Fair  stood ;  but  it  was  by  a  vote 
of  only  one,  that  great,  rich  Romish  Bavaria  decided 
to  help  Prussia  in  the  war  of  1871  against  France. 
One  hundred  and  ninety  millions  of  the  human  race 
are  yet  pacing  to  and  fro  in  the  snows  of  Canossa. 
On  this  distant  shore  sometimes,  when  we  make 
ourselves  not  unduly  sensitive,  and  watch  all  that 
passes  in  cities,  the  air  is  chill.  Let  the  schools 
never  be  made  sectarian.  Let  the  school  fund  not 
be  divided.  Let  there  be  no  State  Church.  [Ap- 
plause.] But  give  us  two  State  chaplains,  and 
pay  each  out  of  the  State  fund,  and  soon  we  shall 


44  ORTHODOXY. 

have  a  demand  for  two  State  schoolmasters  to  be 
paid  out  of  the  State  fund.  After  that  precedent, 
there  will  be  a  clamor  for  State  eleemosynary  institu- 
tions. Will  not  the  pauper  as  well  as  the  criminal 
be  better  off  under  the  direction  of  his  own  religious 
denomination?  Will  not  the  pupil  improve  faster 
when  directed  by  a  teacher  of  his  own  religious 
faith?  We  must  face  the  whole  question  of  the 
division  of  the  school  fund  if  we  are  to  face  that  of 
the  division  of  the  criminal  fund  among  chaplains 
of  various  faiths  in  penal  institutions.  It  is  perfectly 
futile  to  affirm  that  there  is  no  line  to  be  drawn, 
because  at  the  moment  you  cannot  put  your  finger 
down,  and  say  precisely  where  the  line  ought  to  be 
drawn.  Somewhere  between  the  thin  end  of  the 
papal  American  wedge  and  the  thick  or  Maximilian 
end,  the  line  ought  to  be  drawn,  and  will  be  drawn. 
My  impression  is,  that  we  never  shall  divide  the 
school  fund.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

Charles  Kingsley,  poet  and  philanthropist,  friend 
of  the  working-man,  and  chaplain  to  the  Queen  of 
the  British  Empire,  a  stalwart  and  intense  soul,  not 
easily  cheated,  wrote  from  St.  Leonard's  in  185T: 
"  My  heart  demands  the  Trinity  as  much  as  my  rea- 
son. I  want  to  be  sure  that  God  cares  for  us,  that 
God  is  our  Father,  that  God  has  interfered,  stooped, 
sacrificed  himself  for  us.  I  do  not  merely  want  to 
love  Christ,  —  a  Christ,  some  creation  or  emanation 
of  God's,  whose  will  and  character,  for  aught  I  know, 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  45 

may  be  different  from  God's.  I  want  to  love  and 
honor  the  abysmal  God  himself,  and  none  other  will 
satisfy  me.  No  puzzling  texts  shall  rob  me  of  this 
rest  for  my  heart,  that  Christ  is  the  exact  counter- 
part of  Him  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.  I  say  boldly,  if  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity be  not  in  the  Bible,  it  ought  to  be ;  for  the  whole 
spiritual  nature  of  man  cries  out  for  it.  Have  you 
read  Maurice's  essay  on  the  Trinity,  in  his  theologi- 
cal essays ;  addressed  to  Unitarians  ?  (See  Maurice, 
F.  D.,  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  the  Univer 
sity  of  Cambridge,  Theological  Essays,  pp.  410-441.) 
If  not,  you  must  read  it "  (CHARLES  KINGSLEY,  Let- 
ters and  Memories  of  his  Life,  1877,  Am.  ed.,  p.  198). 
In  1865  Kingsley  wrote  to  Maurice:  "As  to  the 
Trinity,  I  do  understand  you.  You  first  taught  me 
that  the  doctrine  was  a  live  thing,  and  not  a  mere 
formula  to  be  swallowed  by  the  undigesting  reason ; 
and  from  the  time  that  I  learnt  from  you  that  a 
Father  meant  a  real  Father,  a  Son  a  real  Son,  a  Holy 
Spirit  a  real  Spirit,  who  was  really  good  and  holy,  I 
have  been  able  to  draw  all  sorts  of  practical  lessons  from 
it  in  the  pulpit,  and  ground  all  my  morality  and  a  great 
deal  of  my  natural  philosophy  upon  it,  and  shall  do  so 
more  "  (IUd.,  p.  357). 

In  1875  Charles  Kingsley,  having  bidden  adieu  to 
Westminster  Abbey  and  Windsor  Castle,  lay  dying ; 
and,  with  the  breath  of  eternity  on  his  cheeks,  the 
central  thought  of  this  modern  man  was  that  "  only 
in  faith  and  love  to  the  Incarnate  God  our  Saviour, 
can  the  cleverest,  as  well  as  the  simplest,  find  the 


46  ORTHODOXY. 

peace  of  God,  which  passes  understanding."  "  In  this 
faith,"  says  his  wife,  "  he  had  lived,  —  and  as  he  had 
lived,  so  he  died, — humble,  confident,  unbewildered." 
In  the  night  he  was  heard  murmuring,  "  No  more 
fighting ;  no  more  fighting."  Then  followed  intense 
earnest  prayers,  which  were  his  habit  when  alone. 
His  warfare  was  accomplished;  he  had  fought  the 
good  fight ;  and,  on  one  of  his  last  nights  on  earth, 
his  daughter  heard  him  exclaim,  "How  beautiful 
God  is ! "  The  last  morning,  at  five  o'clock,  just 
after  his  eldest  daughter  and  his  physician,  who  had 
sat  up  all  night,  had  left  him,  and  he  thought  himself 
alone,  he  was  heard,  in  a  clear  voice,  repeating  the 
Burial  Service:  "Thou  knowest,  O  Lord,  the  secrets 
of  our  hearts;  shut  not  Thy  merciful  ears  to  our 
prayer,  but  spare  us,  O  Lord  most  holy,  O  God  most 
mighty,  O  holy,  merciful  Saviour,  Thou  most  worthy 
Judge  Eternal,  suffer  us  not,  at  our  last  hour,  from 
any  pains  of  death,  to  fall  from  Thee."  He  turned 
on  his  side  after  this,  and  never  spoke  again  (Jfo'c?., 
pp.  481,  482). 

This  modern  martyr,  who  passed  hence  at  the  age 
of  fifty-five,  died  as  martys  have  died  ever  since  the 
apostolic  age ;  and  I  ask  you  to  gaze  with  proper 
awe  upon  this  recently  unveiled  holy  of  holies,  of  a 
brave,  late,  and  adequately  cultured  life,  as  a  vivid 
type  of  what  has  been  happening  in  the  world  for 
eighteen  centuries.  If  you  have  historic  sense,  or 
any  other  kind  of  sense,  you  will  not  be  easily  per- 
suaded that  teaching  which  has  survived  the  buffet- 
ings  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  and  has  been  to  such 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  47 

crowned  multitudes  of  the  acutest  and  saintliest  of 
the  race,  a  source  of  strength  in  life,  and  of  peace  in 
death,  has  behind  it  only  philosophical  speculation, 
metaphysical  nicety,  cold  analysis,  scholarly  precision, 
without  practical  application.  I  affirm  in  the  name 
of  all  accredited  history, 

1.  That  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  always 
been  held  by  Orthodoxy  for  its  practical  value. 

2.  That  it  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  which 
excluded  from  power,  in  human  cultured  beliefs,  the 
thought  of  God  as  fate,  and  brought  in  the  organiz- 
ing and  redemptive  idea  of  God's  fatherhood,  and 
especially  of  the  possibility  of  the  communion  of  men 
with  God  as  personal. 

The  scholarship  of  the  Roman  Empire  shook  off  its 
belief  in  the  fatalism  of  Paganism  by  learning  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Incontrovertibly,  the  divine 
aroma  of  communion  with  God,  as  personal,  was 
breathed  into  history  from  the  lips  of  that  philosophy 
which  speaks  of  God  under  a  Triune  name.  Histori- 
cally, this  teaching  has  borne  these  fruits;  and  the 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  makes  me,  for  one, 
reverent  toward  a  proposition  which,  in  so  many  ages, 
in  so  many  moods  of  the  world's  culture,  in  such  dif- 
ferent circumstances  of  individual  growth,  has  exhib- 
ited a  power  ever  fresh,  and  has  yet  been  the  same 
from  the  time  when  the  apostolic  benediction  was 
pronounced  in  the  Triune  name  to  the  last  anthem 
that  rolled  around  the  world  in  that  same  name. 
(See  Huntington,  Bishop,  "  Christian  Believing  and 
Living,"  pp.  359-361.)  With  the  goodly  company 


48  ORTHODOXY. 

of  the  prophets  and  the  apostles ;  •with  the  martyrs 
of  the  earliest  Christian  ages;  with  the  earlier  and 
the  later  Fathers;  with  the  strong  scholars  who, 
differing  on  much  else,  are  on  this  truth  essentially 
and  persistently  at  one;  with  the  Continental  and 
English  reformers,  and  the  Anglican  and  Puritan  and 
American  divines;  with  Athanasius  and  Tholuck, 
with  Fe*nelon  and  Knox,  with  Augustine  and  An- 
selm,  with  Calvin  and  Wesley,  with  Luther  and  Bos- 
suet,  with  Bull  and  Baxter,  Horsley  and  Howe, 
Pearson,  Newman,  Pascal,  Cudworth,  Wolf,  Butler, 
Tauler  and  Hopkins,  Waterland,  Edwards,  Sherlock 
and  Dwight,  Park  and  Neander ;  with  Nice,  Trent, 
Augsburg,  Westminster,  Edinburgh,  Leipzig,  Berlin, 
Princeton,  New  Haven,  and  Andover,  shall  not  Bos- 
ton say,  Let  the  anthem  roll  on  ?  [Applause.] 

It  is  amazing  to  me  that  any  one  can  have  con- 
sidered my  definition  of  the  Trinity  as  Unitarian. 
A  man  whom  I  honor,  and  whose  candor  every  one 
honors,  is  reported  ("Daily  Advertiser,"  March  26, 
outline  of  the  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke's  discourse, 
March  25)  to  have  said  publicly,  that  the  view 
presented  here  two  weeks  ago  is  "  almost  identical " 
with  his  own ;  and  is  such  as  "  any  Unitarian  may 
readily  receive."  I  am  very  glad  if  it  is ;  but,  as  I 
understand  Mr.  Clarke's  view,  the  one  presented  here 
and  his  differ  by  celestial  diameters.  [Applause.] 
What  is  the  definition  which  this  Lectureship  has 
presented  ? 

1.  The  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  are  one  and 
only  one  God. 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  49 

2.  Each  has  a  peculiarity  incommunicable  to  the 
others. 

3.  Neither  is  God  without  the  others. 

4.  Each  with  the  others  is  God. 

On  the  street  in  this  city  I  met,  a  few  days  ago,  a 
scholar  whom  I  suppose  to  be  the  best  authority  in 
America  in  early  ecclesiastical  history.  Before  I 
had  introduced  the  topic  at  all,  he  said  to  me,  with 
much  emphasis,  "  I  have  documentary  evidence  in  my 
possession  to  prove  that  your  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is  the  view  held  in  the  first  four  centuries."  Two 
days  ago,  on  the  street,  I  met  a  theologian  whose 
knowledge  of  the  relations  of  Christian  truth  to  phi- 
losophy seems  to  me  to  be  unequalled  in  this  country. 
He  said  to  me,  without  any  introduction  of  the 
topic  on  my  part,  "That  definition  of  the  Trinity 
which  you  have  given  will  stand."  He  made  this 
affirmation  twice  or  thrice ;  and,  in  order  to  be  sure 
that  he  had  really  paid  attention  enough  to  this  poor 
Lectureship  to  know  what  the  definition  was,  I  recited 
the  four  propositions;  and  again  he  said  in  effect, 
"  The  storm  in  the  past  has  been  borne  by  that  defi- 
nition or  its  equivalent,  and  you  will  find  that  the 
storm  of  the  future  will  be." 

But,  gentlemen,  it  is  not  by  authority  that  I  desire 
to  buttress  up  any  definition.  It  is  not  a  definition  that 
I  wish  to  give,  but  a  life.  In  the  hushed  atmosphere 
of  religious  science,  we  invite  hither  no  breath  of  the 
unsanctified  north  wind  which  has  too  often  blighted 
Eastern  Massachusetts  on  holy  themes.  Let  a  fasci- 
nating devoutness  lock  hands  with  a  fascinating 


50  ORTHODOXY. 

clearness,  or  no  discussion  can  transmute  truth  into 
life.  Let  luminousness  of  thought  and  the  whole 
clustered  growth  of  the  divine  emotions  twine  around 
our  lives,  as  the  vines  wreathed  themselves  around 
the  caduceus  of  Mercury  of  old ;  and  even  then  we 
shall  not  be  ready  to  study  religious  science,  unless 
we  have,  as  Mercury  had,  on  feet  and  shoulders,  the 
wings  of  the  Spirit  to  enable  us  to  fly  whithersoever 
the  Spirit  calls.  [Applause.] 

There  are  seven  tests  which  any  definition  of  the 
Trinity  must  meet.  It  must  not  be  modalistic  nor 
unintelligible ;  it  must  not  be  tritheistic  nor  Unita- 
rian ,  it  must  not  be  a  contradiction  in  terms  nor  un- 
historical ;  and,  above  all,  it  must  not  be  unscriptural. 
[Applause.] 

The  definition  given  here  is  not  modalistic;  that 
is,  it  does  not  represent  God  as  simply  three  mani- 
festations, nor  yet  as  three  modes  of  being,  consid- 
ered merely,  as  modes.  How  can  it  be  proved  that 
the  definition  is  not  modalistic  ? 

1.  It  teaches  that  each  subsistence  has  a  peculiarity 
incommunicable  to  the  others. 

2.  It  asserts  that  each  subsistence,  with  the  others, 
is  God ;  and  that  neither,  without  the  others,  is  God. 

3.  Therefore  it  asserts  in  strict  terms  the  Deity  of 
our  Lord.     Does  Mr.  Clarke  assert  that  ?    I  hope  he 
does.     [Applause.] 

4.  What  is  said  of  Christ  in  this  definition  can  be 
said  of  no  human  being. 

If  Socrates  had  never  existed,  God  would  yet 
be  God. 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  51 

But,  if  the  Holy  Spirit  had  never  existed,  God 
would  not  be  God. 

If  Christ  had  never  existed,  God  would  not  be 
God. 

If  the  Father  had  never  existed,  God  would  not 
be  God. 

So,  too,  Socrates,  with  the  Father  and  Son,  or 
with  the  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  or  with  the  Father  and 
Holy  Spirit,  is  not  God. 

But  Christ,  with  the  other  two  subsistences,  is 
God. 

Is  it  thought  that  according  to  this  definition  God 
was  in  Socrates,  and  in  Moses,  and  in  Plato,  and  in 
every  great,  devout  soul;  and  that  therefore  there 
is  a  sense  in  which  divinity  or  deity  may  be  attrib- 
uted to  these  loftiest  of  the  human  sort?  Mr. 
Clarke,  I  have  been  told,  thinks  all  that  is  in  my 
definition.  I  do  not  see  that  there ;  for,  according 
to  this  definition,  Socrates  with  the  Father  and  Son, 
or  with  the  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  or  with  the  Father 
and  Holy  Spirit,  is  not  God.  Let  us  perfectly  un- 
derstand ourselves  here,  once  for  all.  Is  Socrates, 
with  any  two  subsistences  which  we  suppose  exist 
in  the  Trinity,  God  ?  If  so,  you  may  say  that,  ac- 
cording to  this  definition,  as  God  was  in  Christ,  so 
he  was  in  Socrates.  But  in  the  name  of  clear 
thought  you  will  never  say  that ;  for  Christ  with  the 
other  two  subsistences  is  here  affirmed  to  be  God; 
and  each  of  the  subsistences  with  the  others  is  God ; 
but  no  human  spirit  has  such  qualities  that  you  may 
make  concerning  it 'assertions  parallel  to  these. 


52  OETHODOXY. 

5.  What  is  affirmed  of  Christ  in  the  definition 
can  be  said  of  no  created  being,  however  high  in 
rank. 

If  the  highest  of  the  archangels  had  never  existed, 
God  •would  yet  be  God. 

But,  if  either  of  the  three  subsistences  in  the 
Trinity  had  never  existed,  God  would  not  be  God ; 
for,  according  to  this  definition,  neither  subsistence 
is  God  without  the  others. 

So,  too,  the  highest  of  the  archangels  with  the 
Father  and  Son,  or  with  the  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  or 
with  the  Father  and  Holy  Spirit,  is  not  God. 

But  Christ,  with  the  other  two  subsistences,  is 
God. 

It  is  therefore  futile  to  charge  this  definition  with 
being  modalistic.  There  is  no  clearness  of  thought 
on  any  theme,  if  it  be  not  clear  that  our  Lord, 
according  to  this  definition,  displayed  a  degree  of 
being  that  was  deific.  How  can  a  man  who  holds 
that  definition  be  charged  with  holding  that  Socrates 
and  Isaiah  and  Plato  are  to  be  named  in  the  same 
list  with  our  Lord  ?  Is  it  not  unspeakably  shocking, 
merely  to  the  historic,  to  say  nothing  of  the  religious, 
sense  of  man ;  is  it  not  a  silly  disloyalty  to  all  the 
incontrovertible  facts  which  reveal  Christ's  present 
influence  in  the  world,  to  run  up,  in  the  light  style 
of  literary  aesthetics,  a  list  from  Socrates  to  Christ, 
and  so  on,  until,  when  the  vexed  catalogue  of  merely 
human  beings  becomes  confessedly  rather  unimpor- 
tant, you  read  in  the  discussions  of  some  that  the 
future  is  to  be  drawn  on  ?  "  We  have  not  quite 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  53 

equalled  Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spoke ;  but 
we  shall !  Better  things  are  coming !  "  How  shock- 
ing that  is  to  sobriety  of  all  kinds,  intellectual  and 
emotional!  Historic,  to  say  nothing  of  religious 
devoutness,  stands  aghast  at  any  such  contravention 
of  the  straightforward  reasoning  of  Napoleon  at  St. 
Helena.  Admit,  however,  as  the  scientific  method 
requires  you  to  do,  that  Christ  was  so  exceptional  a  soul 
that  Grod  was  in  him  in  a  thoroughly  exceptional  man- 
ner ;  admit  with  Rousseau  that  he  lived  a  sinless  life  ; 
admit  with  the  most  scholarly  of  modern  infidels,  that 
Crod  was  in  him  in  such  a  sense  as  he  never  was  in  any 
other  created  being :  admit  this,  and  you  have  conceded 
enough  to  prove  that  you  logically  ought  to  regard  this  ex- 
ceptionally holy  and  wise  Being,  as  veracious;  and  there- 
fore that  you,  in  consistency  with  your  own  admissions, 
ought  to  accept  Christ's  testimony  concerning  Himself. 
Take  that,  as  re-enforced  by  the  testimony  of  the  ages  to 
His  work  in  the  world,  and  perhaps  you  will  not  be  at 
a  loss  for  reasons  for  changing  your  word  "  divinity  " 
into  "  deity,"  if  you  are  logical.  [Applause.]  Leib- 
nitz said  that  those  who  deny  the  Deity  of  our  Lord, 
and  yet  pray  to  him,  may  be  good  men,  but  that 
surely  they  are  not  good  logicians.  [Applause.] 

The  definition  is  not  unintelligible,  for  the  incom- 
municable peculiarity  is  defined  by  several  very  dis- 
tinct traits. 

Ages  of  close  discussion  lie  behind  the  assertions  I 
am  making,  and  you  will  not  think  it  the  temerity  of 
extemporaneous  speech  for  me  to  recite  these  propo- 
sitions rapidly.  The  ages  of  discussion  make  it 


54  ORTHODOXY. 

necessary  that  I  should  be  cautious;  they  make  it 
unnecessary  that  I  should  be  prolix. 

1.  The  peculiarity  of  each  subsistence  is  incommu- 
nicable. 

2.  It  is  such  that  neither  subsistence  taken  alone, 
wholly  without  the  other  subsistence,  is  God. 

3.  It  is  such  that  each  subsistence  is  of  the  same 
dignity  as  the  others. 

4.  It  is  such  that  each  subsistence  is  of  the  same 
substance  with  the  others. 

5.  It  is  such  that  the  chief  office  of  one  subsistence 
is  best  expressed  by  the  words  Creator  and  Father ; 
of  a  second  subsistence,  by  the  words  Redeemer  and 
Son ;  and  of  a  third,  by  the  words  Sanctifier  and 
Comforter. 

6.  It  is  such  that  each  subsistence,  with  the  others, 
is  God. 

Beyond  these  six  traits,  it  is  neither  necessary  nor 
possible  to  define  the  subsistences. 

Will  you  explain  to  me  every  thing  in  connection 
of  mind  and  matter?  Will  you  so  illustrate  the 
structure  of  the  human  spirit,  that  there  shall  be  no 
mystery  hanging  over  the  border-land  between  the 
immaterial  and  the  material  ?  Can  you  in  philosophy 
obviate  all  the  difficulties  arising  from  the  limitations 
of  the  human  faculties?  Read  your  Mansel,  your 
Hamilton,  your  Kant,  and  your  Lotze,  on  the  rela- 
tions of  attribute  to  substance.  Can  substance  exist 
aside  from  attribute  ?  Has  any  one  a  perfectly 
distinct  idea  of  what  substance  is,  wholly  apart  from 
its  attributes  ?  Until  you  get  rid  of  all  mystery  in 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  55 

the  fields  of  thought  purely  philosophical,  do  not  say, 
when  we  come  to  realms  of  existence  immeasurably 
higher  above  our  own  than  the  noon  is  above  the 
brightness  of  the  transient  gleam  of  the  firefly  in  the 
summer's  meadow,  that  we  shall  not  find  some  things 
inexplicable  to  our  present  capacities !  If  God  were 
perfectly  explicable  to  a  finite  being,  he  would  not 
be  God. 

Merely  on  account  of  any  mystery  left  in  this  por- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  after  these  six 
specifications  have  been  made,  you  cannot  reject  a 
truth  which  stands  here  to-day  guaranteed  by  eigh- 
teen centuries  of  good  fruits.  We  know  some  things, 
although  we  do  not  know  all  things,  about  the  char- 
acter of  the  subsistences.  Nobody  ever  pretended 
to  know  all  the  facts  about  either  of  them.  Moses 
Stuart  used  to  refuse  with  emphasis  all  appeals  to 
him  to  define  the  words  "person,"  " distinction," 
"  subsistence."  He  held  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
most  emphatically ;  but,  beyond  the  truths  now  enu- 
merated, it  is  unscriptural,  and  it  is  clearly  unphilo- 
sophical,  for  a  man  to  pretend  to  be  wise  above  the 
range  of  the  human  faculties. 

What  is  the  difference  between  a  mystery  and  a 
contradiction?  A  mystery  is  something  of  which 
we  know  that  it  is,  although  we  do  not  know  how  it  is. 
A  self-contradiction  is  the  inconsistency  of  a  proposi- 
tion with  itself  or  with  its  own  implications.  If  there 
is  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  a  self-contradiction, 
we  must  throw  its  propositions  overboard'  in  the 
name  of  learning  and  of  clear  thought.  But,  if  there 


56  ORTHODOXY. 

be  in  it  only  a  mystery,  that  may  be  no  objection ; 
for  a  mystery  is  merely  something  of  which  we  know 
that  it  is,  although  we  do  not  know  how  it  is.  I  know 
that  the  grass  grows :  I  do  not  know  how  it  grows.  I 
know  that  my  will  lifts  my  arm :  I  do  not  know  how 
it  does  this.  There  is  mystery  in  each  of  these 
cases ;  but  the  mystery  does  not  hinder  my  believing 
the  facts,  although  I  do  not  know  how  they  are  to  be 
explained.  Mystery  belongs  to  physical  almost  more 
than  to  religious  truth.  We  should  expect  it  to  ap- 
pear oftener  in  religious  science  than  in  physical,  as 
the  topics  of  the  former  are  incalculably  vaster  and 
more  complex  than  those  of  the  latter ;  and  yet  it  is 
a  question  whether  your  Tyndalls  and  your  Huxleys 
do  not  call  on  you  to  believe  more  mysteries  than 
your  'Butlers,  your  Edwardses,  and  your  Channings. 
[Applause.] 

The  definition  is  not  tritheistic  ;  for, 

1.  It  asserts  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost 
are  one,  and  only  one,  God. 

2.  It  denies  that  either,  taken  wholly  without  the 
others,  is  God. 

Therefore,  according  to  this  definition,  there  are 
not  three  Gods.  The  definition  does  not  in  terms 
assert,  but  it  does  imply,  that  there  are  not  in  God 
three  wills,  three  sets  of  affections,  three  consciences, 
three  intellects.  According  to  the  Scriptures,  are 
there  not  in  God  such  subsistences,  that  when  it  is 
said  that  the  Father  sends  the  Son,  and  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
some  portion  of  the  action  involved  in  these  events  may 


THE  TRINITY  A  PEACTICAL  TRUTH.  57 

not  be  common  to  all  the  three  subsistences?  I  think 
so.  If  you  will  be  careful  in  your  phraseology,  and 
not  say  that  there  are  literally  three  wills,  three  sets 
of  affections,  three  intellects,  —  if  you  will  simply  say 
that  some  portion  of  the  action  involved  in  the  sending 
of  the  Son,  or  in  the  shedding  forth  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
may  not  be  common  to  all-  the  three  subsistences, — 
you  will  be  asserting  only  what  is  affirmed  in  the 
second  proposition  of  this  definition ;  namely,  that 
each  subsistence  has  a  peculiarity  incommunicable  to 
the  others. 

But  I  will  resist,  in  the  name  of  the  mass  of  schol- 
arship for  the  last  fifteen  hundred  years,  the  proposi- 
tion that  there  are  in  God  three  persons  in  a  strict, 
colloquial,  literal,  modern,  English,  American,  Boston 
sense.  [Applause.]  Why  do  I  resist  that?  Because 
the  word  person,  in  our  colloquial  speech,  implies 
a  species.  What  is  a  species?  When  you  say  a 
man  is  a  person,  you  imply  that  he  belongs  to  a 
class  of  beings  called  men.  If  you  say  there  are 
three  persons  in  God,  and  mean  by  that  word  just 
what  you  mean  by  it  on  the  street  and  in  the  parlor, 
you  assume  that  these  persons  are  individuals  in  a 
species ;  and  my  reply  is  that  there  is  no  species  of 
Gods  outside  of  polytheism.  There  is  nothing  of  the 
sort  known  to  either  scriptural  or  scientific  truth. 
No  doubt  Orthodoxy  has  often  been  careless  in  her 
phrases.  Under  the  rubric  of  idle  words  many  a 
stupid  and  many  an  incautious  expression  used  in 
religious  and  philosophical  discussion  will,  no  doubt, 
be  judged  at  the  last  day.  [Applause.]  But  it  is 


58  ORTHODOXY. 

not  stupidity,  it  is  not  incautiousness,  which  causes 
Orthodoxy  to  use  the  word  person  sometimes.  She 
is  always  speaking  Latin  when  she  uses  that  word 
intelligently.  She  employs  it  as  a  technical  term, 
because  it  has  been  in  the  creeds  of  the  Church 
fifteen  hundred  years.  Adopted  in  the  days  of  the 
poverty  of  the  Latin  language,  it  has  come  down  to 
the  days  of  the  richness  of  the  English  tongue. 
Calvin  himseif  said  he  would  be  willing  that  the 
word  person  should  be  dropped  forever  out  of  the 
discussions  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  if  only 
the  truth  could  be  retained  that  there  are  in  God 
three  distinctions,  each  with  a  peculiarity  or  a  prop- 
erty incommunicable  to  the  others,  and  each,  with 
the  others,  God.  For  three  hundred  years  the  defi- 
nition I  have  been  putting  before  you,  or  its  equiva- 
lent, has  been  generally  regarded  as  the  standard. 
But,  if  by  persons  you  understand  individuals,  you 
must  admit  that  you  cannot  make  three  persons, 
John,  William,  and  James,  one.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  each  individual,  which  we  describe  by  the  word 
person  in  its  ordinary  sense,  is  incommunicable,  as 
a  whole,  to  any  other  individual.  This  idea  of  per- 
sonality, as  the  word  is  understood  on  the  street  and 
in  the  parlor,  does  not  belong  to  the  idea  of  the 
three  subsistences  in  the  Trinity.  Scholarship  has 
always  taught  that  God  is  one,  and  has  never  taught 
that  William  and  John  and  James  are  one.  God  is 
one  essence  or  substance.  Three  persons,  in  the 
usual  sense  of  the  word,  are  not  of  one  substance. 
It  is  the  immemorial  teaching  of  religious  science, 


THE  TRINITY  A  PEACTICAL  TRUTH.  59 

that  we  must  not  divide  the  substance  of  God ;  and 
we  do  this  whenever  we  say  that  there  are  in  God 
three  persons  in  the  literal,  modern,  colloquial  sense 
of  that  word.  When  the  popular  is  substituted  for 
the  technical  meaning  of  this  term,  men  who  have 
little  time  for  thought  on  the  subject  are  confused, 
and  led  to  suppose  that  you  are  teaching  self-con- 
tradictions, or  that  God  is  three,  and  that  he  is  only 
one,  and  that  he  is  one  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
he  is  three.  Here  in  Eastern  Massachusetts,  on  the 
battle-fields  of  Unitarianism  and  Trinitarianism,  it  is 
high  time  that  this  misapprehension  should  cease  to 
have  any  excuse  for  itself  in  the  carelessness  of  the 
phrases  used  in  Orthodox  quarters.  Say  three  sub- 
stances; three  distinctions,  each  with  a  peculiarity 
incommunicable  to  the  others;  but  not  three  wills, 
not  three  sets  of  affections,  not  three  intellects. 
Such,  however,  is  the  force  of  the  proposition  that 
each  substance  has  a  peculiarity  incommunicable  to 
the  others,  that  I  am  not  unwilling  to  affirm  that  in 
the  whole  range  of  activities  involved  in  God's  con- 
nection with  men  there  are  influences  which  are 
not  common  to  all  the  subsistences.  This  is  Biblical 
truth;  and  this  truth  is  in  this  definition,  which, 
therefore,  as  scholars  will  allow  me  to  say,  avoids 
Patripassianism  as  well  as  Modalism. 

There  are  four  expressions  that  can  be  used, — 
"  All  the  attributes ;  "  "  Some  of  the  attributes ; " 
"Property;"  "Peculiarity."  Some  men  say,  "All 
the  attributes  of  one  subsistence  may  be,  for  aught  we 
know,  different  from  those  belonging  to  either  of  the 


60  ORTHODOXY. 

other  subsistences."  Others  say,  "Some  attributes 
differ."  Yet  others  affirm,  "  Properties  differ."  But 
the  word  which  has  been  used  here  is  "  peculiarity." 
Why  do  I  adopt  that  word?  Because,  if  I  use 
"property,"  instantly  arise  all  the  celebrated  forms 
of  speculation  about  the  connection  of  "  substance  " 
and  "property,"  and  you  may  find  yourselves  be- 
fogged by  merely  philosophical  difficulties.  "All 
attributes,"  "some  attributes,"  "property,"  "pecul- 
iarity,"— that  last  is  the  word  employed  in  the  defi- 
nition used  here,  and  the  word  which  I  believe  will 
bear  not  only  the  microscope  and  the  scalpel  of  phi- 
losophy, but  the  blaze  of  the  infinity  of  Biblical 
truth.  [Applause.] 

Have  there  not  been  teachers  who  have  held  that 
there  are  three  wills  in  God?  Yes.  Have  there  not 
been  in  New  England  intelligent  Christians  who  have 
worshipped  three  beings  in  imagination,  although  in 
their  thoughts  they  have  asserted  that  God  is-  one  ? 
I  fear  there  have  been,  and  that  there  are  yet.  Is 
this,  however,  the  standard  doctrine  of  Christianity, 
or  the  more  general  teaching  of  the  Church?  By 
no  means.  Is  that  divided  mood  which  you  find 
among  some,  of  looking  into  Judaea  for  our  Lord, 
and  into  heaven  for  the  Father,  and  into  the  space 
between  the  earth  and  heaven  for  the  vague  some- 
what which  we  call  the  Holy  Spirit,  Biblical  ?  Not 
as  I  read  the  Scriptures.  Are  we  to  regard  those 
as  well-educated  Christians,  who,  in  thoughts  of  God, 
are  constantly  thinking  of  our  Lord  as  if  he  were 
at  this  hour  in  Gethsemane,  or  on  the  Mount  of 


THE  TRINITY  A   PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  61 

Olives,  or  walking  on  the  shore  of  Galilee;  and 
of  the  Father  as  among  the  constellations;  and  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  as  shed  down  on  us  from  the  in- 
finite spaces :  three  wills,  three  intellects,  three  sets 
of  affections?  You  may  regard  such  Christians  ten- 
derly ;  but,  for  one,  I  regard  them  tenderly  enough 
to  wish  that  they  might  be  both  more  Biblical  and 
more  scientific.  [Applause.]  Notice  the  mood  of 
this  audience,  which  is  made  up  of  men  in  whose 
presence  I  speak  with  bated  breath,  and  which 
has  assembled  in  a  city  that  has  heard,  I  suppose, 
more  on  this  theme  than  any  other  one  city  on  the 
globe,  except  old  Rome  or  Alexandria.  It  is  not 
pleasant  to  me  to  dwell  on  topics  that  require  us  to 
walk  over  embers  hardly  cold;  but  I  belong  to  a 
generation  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  discus- 
sions that  divided  God's  house  in  Eastern  Massachu- 
setts. The  time  has  come  for  antagonistic  beliefs  to 
attend  to  each  other's  definitions,  and  not  to  each 
other's  defamations.  [Applause.]  Seriousness  in 
speech  or  print  usually  spends  its  time  more  profit- 
ably than  in  gymnastic  boxing.  Shall  we  not  in  the 
transfigured  mood  of  Boston  at  this  hour  call  our- 
selves into  God's  presence,  as  he  was  visible  to 
Stephen,  and  to  Paul,  and  to  John,  not  on  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  not  on  the  shore  of  Galilee,  but  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  Father?  Let  us  grasp  the  trans- 
figuring Biblical  certainty  that  the  influences  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  are  Christ's  continued  life.  You  will  not 
understand  me  to  deny  for  an  instant  that  our  Lord's 
earthly  life  and  sufferings  are  a  better  revelation  to 


62  ORTHODOXY. 

us  of  God's  moral  attributes  than  external  nature  is 
or  can  be.  Christ  is  the  rainbow,  or  unravelled  light, 
and  the  Father  is  the  white  light ;  and  we  must  look 
on  the  seven  colors  if  we  would  know  what  is  always  in 
the  white  beam.  Thus  our  Lord's  life  and  sufferings 
on  earth  are  to  be  constantly  before  us  as  a  picture  of 
the  Divine  Nature.  But  the  influences  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  are  a  present  Christ,  and  God  is  not  three,  but 
one.  Our  Lord  himself  is  now  in  heaven  and  here ; 
and,  though  we  look  to  Judaea  for  one  part  of  His 
life,  we  must  beware  how  we  look  there,  as  Stephen 
and.  Paul  did  not,  for  the  whole  of  it  or  for  Him. 
Though  the  rainbow  has  ceased  to  appear,  it  has 
not  ceased  to  exist ;  it  has  been  taken  back  into  the 
bosom  of  the  general  radiance,  and  yet  falls  on  the 
earth.  Wherever  white  light  falls,  the  rainbow  falls 
potentially.  The  luminousness,  the  color,  and  the 
heat,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  three  subsistences 
in  one  substance,  all  enswathe  us  here  and  now,  and 
make  the  present  hour  sacred  as  the  beginning  of 
days ;  for  there  is  but  one  God,  who  was,  and  is,  and 
is  to  come. 

Mr.  Clarke  is  reported  as  saying  that,  "  if  God  is 
seen  and  shown  in  Christ  as  he  is  seen  and  shown  in 
Nature,  there  is  no  reason  for  considering  one  as  more 
divine  than  the  other.  God  is  in  Christ,  and  we  may 
worship  God  as  shown  to  us  in  Christ.  But  so  is  God 
also  in  Nature,  and  we  may  worship  God  as  shown 
to  us  in  Nature.  God  is  in  Christ,  and  God  is  in 
Nature;  but  that  does  not  make  Nature  or  Christ 
God,  but  only  manifestations  of  him." 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  63 

Here  are  two  meanings  in  the  one  word  "  nature," 
a  term  that  has  behind  it  the  most  mischievous  ambi- 
guity, and  is  perhaps  the  least  innocent  bewildering 
fog  in  the  whole  range  of  philosophical  discussion. 
By  nature,  what  do  you  mean?  The  sun  and  the 
moon  ?  Of  course  we  do  not  worship  these  :  we  are 
not  Persians.  But  if  by  nature  you  mean  that 
Power  of  Intelligence  and  Choice  which  is  behind 
all  natural  law,  we  do  worship  the  God  revealed  by 
the  Oldest  Testament,  or  the  Nature  of  Things. 
[Applause.]  But  this  we  understand  to  be  the  very 
God  revealed  by  the  New  Testament  and  the  Newest. 
"All  things  were  made  by  him,  and  without  him 
was  nothing  made  that  is  made."  "He  is  before 
all  things,  and  by  him  all  things  consist."  These 
are  words  written  rather  earlier  than  the  year  325 ; 
and  you  say  (see  CLARKE,  Orthodoxy,  p.  508)  that 
there  was  no  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  until  after 
this  date. 

Is  it  affirmed  that  we  must  worship  God  in  con- 
science ?  What  do  you  mean  by  conscience  ?  The 
human  part  of  the  intuitive  moral  sense,  or  that 
divine  Somewhat  or  Some  One  who  is  revealed  by 
the  moral  law,  and  is  in  us,  but  not  of  us  ?  If  you 
mean  the  latter,  we  do,  in  the  name  of  every  text  in 
the  Oldest  and  the  Old,  the  Newest  and  the  New  Tes- 
tament, worship  it  as  "  the  light  that  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  [Applause.] 
But  of  that  light  we  read  that  in  the  beginning  it 
was  with  God,  and  was  God. 

To  worship  God  as  in  all  natural  law  is  not  to 


64  ORTHODOXY. 

set  natural  law  above  God.  What  is  natural  law? 
The  method  of  action  of  God's  will.  Can  God's  will 
be  above  God's  will?  Even  your  Maurice  says  that 
the  Greek  from  the  Thessalian  hill  heard  the  voice 
of  God,  but  mistook  it  for  that  of  Fate.  The  old 
polytheists  made  Necessity  the  highest  God.  Un- 
doubtedly, fixed  law  is,  from  one  point  of  view,  a 
revelation  of  the  highest  force  in  the  universe ;  and 
it  becomes  us,  as  stern  cultivators  of  science,  to  reve- 
rence this  quite  measurelessly  important  fact.  But 
what  the  old  Greek  at  Delphi  regarded  as  fate,  we 
have  come  to  regard  as  the  unchanging,  because  per- 
fectly holy  and  wise  choice,  of  Almighty  God.  It 
must  be  that  an  infinite  Being  knows  what  the  one 
best  way  is  in  which  to  manage  the  universe,  and 
that  he  will  choose  and  adhere  to  that  way.  There 
can  be  but  one  best  way  to  manage  the  universe. 
If  that  self-evident  truth  is  not  a  part  of  the  nature 
of  things,  what  is  ?  [Applause.]  The  Oldest  Testa- 
ment is  fearfully  orthodox.  [Applause.]  We  know 
that  there  can  be  but  one  best  way,  for  best  is  a 
superlative  word,  and  admits  no  comparison ;  and 
that  this  one  best  way  Omnipotence  and  Omniscience 
will  choose  and  adhere  to.  Therefore,  in  the  eterni- 
ties and  infinities  governed  by  a  perfect  Will,  there 
will  appear  to  be  fate;  but  there  will  be  there  in 
reality  only  the  completely  wise  and  holy,  and  there- 
fore unchanging,  choice  of  Almighty  God.  Your 
Oldest  Testament  says  the  nature  of  things  is  with- 
out variableness  or  shadow  of  turning.  But  when 
your  New  and  your  Newest  Testament  speak  of  the 


THE  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.  65 

Father  of  Lights,  from  whom  cometh  down  every 
good  and  perfect  gift,  they  affirm  also  that,  although 
he  is  Father,  he  is  without  variableness  or  shadow  of 
turning.  We  worship  one  God,  but  a  God  free  and 
above  all  things  —  except  what  ?  The  requirements 
of  his  own  perfections.  Theodore  Parker  used  to 
stand  on  a  platform  not  five  hundred  feet  from  this, 
and  say,  God  cannot  make  two  and  two  one  thousand. 
Such  is  God,  that  he  cannot  choose  to  do  what  ought 
not  to  be  done.  He  cannot  deny  himself.  A  moral 
impossibility  inheres  in  the  nature  of  a  Perfect  Being. 
The  cans  and  cannots  of  all  science  spring  out  of  the 
impossibilities  existing  in  a  Perfect  Nature. 

Mr.  Clarke  says  that  "  Christianity  teaches  not  the 
sovereignty  of  the  nature  of  things,  but  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  divine  love ; "  and  another  liberal  critic 
has  affirmed,  that,  if  God  be  such  a  Being  as  the  New 
Testament  represents  him  to  be,  he  will  make  short 
work  with  the  nature  of  things.  What  astounding 
confusion  of  thought  is  this,  and  what  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  Oldest  Testament  and  the  Old,  the  Newest 
and  the  New !  God  make  short  work  with  the  nature 
of  things  !  What  is  the  nature  of  things  ?  By  defi- 
nition it  is  the  total  outcome  of  the  Divine  perfec- 
tions. God  make  short  work  with  his  own  infinite 
justice  and  holiness,  his  own-  intellectual  excellence, 
and  with  all  thpt  is  implied  in  the  infinitude  of  the 
Divine  nature !  What  we  call  the  nature  of  things 
is  but  another  name  for  all  the  requirements  of  the 
Divine  free  choice ;  and  is  an  infinitely  perfect  Being 
to  make  short  work  of  that?  God  himself  making 


66  ORTHODOXY. 

short  work  with  the  nature  of  things?  God  a  suicide? 
These  phrases  mean  the  same  thing.  It  will  be  of 
importance  for  you  and  me  to  have  no  war  with  the 
nature  of  things  until  the  day  when  Gvd  ceases  to  be 
God. 
The  definition  is  in  no  sense  Unitarian  ;  for 

1.  It  asserts  the  Deity  of  our  Lord.     There  is  no 
form  of  Unitarianism  which  asserts  this. 

2.  We  have  seen  that  what  is  said  of  Christ  in  the 
definition  can  be  said  of  no  created  being. 

It  is  not  a  contradiction  in  terms  ;  for  it  does  not  as- 
sert that  God  is  one  in  the  same  sense  in  which  he 
is  three,  nor  three  in  the  same  sense  in  which  he  is 
one. 

It  is  not  unhistorical ;  for  it  presents  a  view  of  the 
Trinity  consistent  with  all  the  greatest  symbols  in 
use  in  the  Church  for  fifteen  hundred  years. 

It  is  not  unscriptural.  In  the  celebrated  discus- 
sions between  Unitarianism  and  Trinitarianism  in 
Eastern  Massachusetts,  the  proof-texts  of  the  Deity 
of  our  Lord,  adduced  by  Moses  Stuart  in  his  letters 
to  Channing,  have  never  been  answered.  Andrews 
Norton  made  many  philosophical  objections  to  the 
Trinity,  which  do  not  apply  at  all  to  the  best  defini- 
tion of  it.  No  one  has  ever  shown  that  the  Scrip- 
tural passages  Moses  Stuart  adduced  do  not  have 
the  meaning  he  attributed  to  them.  CSee  STUART, 
PROFESSOR,  Letters  to  Channing.} 

We  are  assured  by  the  scientific  method,  that  in 
no  page  of  that  portion  of  the  volume  of  the  uni- 
verse which  is  open  to  us,  is  there  any  light  we  can 


THE  TKINTTY  A  PEACTICAL  TRUTH.  67 

spare.  Science  and  practical  life  alike  require  that 
we  should  be  loyal  to  all  the  facts  within  our  view. 
It  is  incontrovertible,  that,  when  we  look  into  all 
our  light,  a  Trinity  is  within  view.  Contemplated 
closely,  a  Trinity  is  found  to  be  the  Trinity.  Ex- 
ternal Nature,  History,  and  Conscience  reveal  God 
as  Creator,  Redeemer,  Sanctifier,  and  yet  as  one. 
Therefore,  we  open  all  the  windows  of  the  outer 
and  inner  azure  by  the  truth  of  the  Trinity  of  the 
Divine  Nature.  This  is  the  historic  force  which 
changed  the  sky  of  brass  and  iron,  which  bent 
above  the  Thessalian  hill,  into  soft  azure,  all  soul 
and  not  sky.  The  inaccessible  heaven  which  stood 
above  Olympus  comes  near  now,  and  enswathes  all 
the  round  worlds  in  its  bosom.  But  some  would 
build  negations  above  our  heads  into  an  obstructing 
dome,  and  confine  us  to  a  fragmentary  view  of  the 
Divine  Nature.  There  are  two  kinds  of  Unitarian- 
ism.  One  looks  through  but  a  single  window  vividly, 
and  sees  from  it  well  only  God  the  Father.  In  this 
view  there  is  a  simplicity  which  is  pleasing  to  many. 
For  a  time  it  may  be  a  devout  view,  especially  in  mod- 
ern days  with  full  Christianity  behind  them  and  pour- 
ing through  them,  and  in  these  yet  early  New  Eng- 
land years,  with  Plymouth  Rock  and  all  the  genera- 
tions since  our  fathers  landed,  to  give  moods  of  de- 
voutness  to  the  generation  now  passing  off  the  stage. 
There  are  wants  of  life,  however,  which  no  one  quar- 
ter of  the  sky  taken  alone  can  meet.  History  teaches 
that  in  the  growth  of  the  flowers  which  blossom  against 
that  one  window,  there  is  apt  to  be,  in  the  third  or 


68  ORTHODOXY. 

fourth  generation,  a  want  of  vigor,  and  a  subtle  loss 
of  plainly  celestial  aromas.  But  there  is  another  and 
wider  belief  in  the  Divine  Unity,  a  Window  that 
has  the  sun  all  the  day.  Sweep  off  the  whole  dome, 
and  you  open  God's  Window;  behold  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,  as  one  undivided  heaven  of  equal 
height  at  every  point  of  its  pulsating,  fathomless 
azure,  whose  light  and  color  and  heat,  although  three 
subsistences,  are  one  substance,  and  you  have  God's 
Unitarianism.  [Applause.] 

[After  a  doxology  had  been  rendered  by  the  organ, 
the  audience  rose,  and  Mr.  Cook  said,]  A  question 
has  been  put  into  my  hands,  which  I  will  answer  on 
the  spot :  "  How  do  you  reply  to  Mr.  Clarke's 
objection  that  the  '  peculiarity '  of  each  '  subsistence ' 
is  either  something  imperfect,  or  something  perfect  ? 
If  the  latter,  then  each  *  subsistence  '  lacks  a  perfec- 
tion: if  the  former,  the  consequence  is  obvious." 
The  reply  is,  that  the  definition  asserts  that  neither 
subsistence  taken  alone  is  God.  Each  subsistence 
taken  by  itself,  and  wholly  without  the  others,  is 
imperfect  in  that  sense.  The  three  taken  together 
are  God;  and  to  the  idea  of  Unity  thus  defined 
such  an  objection  is  not  applicable  at  all. 


m. 

THE  TEINITY,  THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH. 

THE     SEVENTY-SECOND     LECTURE     IN     THE     BOSTON     MONDAT 
LECTURESHIP,   DELIVERED  IN  TREMONT   TEMPLE  APRIL  2. 


Cum  ictibus  ungularum  concussa  fortius  latera  sulcarentur  pro- 
fluensqne  sanguinis  unda  violentis  tractibus  emanaret,  Proconsulem 
sibi  dicentem  audivit :  Incipies  sentire  quae  vos  pati  oporteat.  Et 
adjecit :  Ad  gloriam.  Gratias  ago  Deo  regnorum.  Apparet  regnum 
seternum,  regmim  incorruptum.  Domine  Jesu  Christe,  Christian! 
sumus ;  Tibi  serviinus  ;  Tu  es  spes  nostra  ;  Tu  es  spes  Christia- 
norum  ;  Deus  sanctissime  ;  Deua  altissime  ;  Deus  omnipotens."  — 
KOTNABT,  Acta,  p.  340. 

"  Christianorum  est  etiam  deum  mortuum  credere,  et  tamen  vi- 
ventum  in  aevo  sevonun."  —  TEETULLIAN,  Adv.  Marc.,  11, 16. 


m. 

THE  TRINITY,  THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

IN  the  city  of  Edinburgh  the  American  evangelista 
who  are  now  in  Boston  never  had  a  hall  that  would 
seat  over  fifteen  hundred.  They  reached  the  Scot- 
tish metropolis  Nov.  22,  1873,  and  left  it  Jan.  21, 
1874.  They  have  now  been  here  as  long  as  they 
were  in  Edinburgh.  It  will  always  be  incontrovert- 
ible, that  a  structure  which  holds  from  six  thou- 
sand to  seven  thousand  people  has  been  opened 
in  Boston  for  religious  audiences,  and  that  week 
after  week  for  two  months,  on  every  fair  day,  and 
often  twice  or  thrice  a  day,  when  an  undiluted 
Christianity  has  been  proclaimed  there,  this  Boston 
building  has  been  filled  to  copious  overflowing. 
What  other  cause  would  have  filled  it  as  often  and  as 
long  ?  This  is  the  large  question  which  Edinburgh 
and  London,  Chicago  and  San  Francisco,  will  ask. 
As  a  help  to  an  interior  view  of  Massachusetts  and 
its  capital,  it  is  not  improper  for  me  to  state,  what 
the  evangelists  themselves  could  not  perhaps  with 
propriety  say  publicly,  that  their  opinion  is  that  in 

71 


72  ORTHODOXY. 

Boston  the  average  result  of  their  work  has  been 
better  than  it  was  in  Edinburgh.  Both  the  evangel- 
ists have  expressed,  with  detailed  reasons  and  empha- 
sis, that  opinion  to  me;  and  neither  of  them  has 
asked  me  to  state  the  opinion  publicly. 

Harvard  and  Yale  each  strenuously  opposed  George 
Whitefield,  and  each  now  regrets  its  opposition. 
Did  you  notice  that  the  revered  president  of  Boston 
University  was  reported  as  having  silenced  a  group 
of  critics  at  the  obsolescent  Chestnut-street  club  the 
other  day,  by  an  invulnerable  indorsement  of  the 
general  character  of  the  religious  work  now  being 
performed  in  this  city  ?  This  indorsement  came  from 
a  scholar  of  whom  it  can  be  said,  as  I  think  it  cannot 
be  of  any  other  New  England  president  of  a  college, 
that  before  he  finished  his  yet  recent  German  studies 
he  had  written  in  German  an  elaborate  work  on  reli- 
gious science,  abreast  of  the  latest  thought.  Boston 
University,  led  by  this  incomparable  scholar  of  the 
freshest  and  severest  German  training,  is  as  cordial 
toward  the  American  evangelists  as  the  great  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh  was.  When  Phillips  Brooks  ap- 
pears in  the  Tabernacle,  the  culture  of  Boston  and  the 
students  of  Harvard  are  there.  Of  course  Harvard 
University  differs  from  Edinburgh  University  in  its 
religious  attitude ;  and  for  that  fact  there  are  rea- 
sons, prolonged,  historic,  adequate,  but,  thank  God, 
of  waning  force !  When  James  VI.  was  sixteen 
years  of  age,  in  1582,  Edinburgh  University  was 
founded ;  and  it  was  fed  from  the  Scottish  universi- 
ties of  St.  Andrews  and  Glasgow,  which  began  their 


T.HE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH.  73 

stalwart  career  before  America  was  discovered.  Uni- 
versity life  in  Scotland  had  venerableness  when  Har- 
vard was  yet  in  the  gristle.  It  has  had  a  longer 
time  than  Harvard  in  which  to  judge  creeds  by  the 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  is  wiser,  there- 
fore ;  but  Harvard  one  day  will  be  wise  under  that 
law.  [Applause.] 

Are  there  any  points  of  superiority  in  this  religious 
awakening  to  that  which  occurred  in  Boston  in  the 
days  of  Whitefield  ?  It  must  be  admitted  that  there 
are  some  points  of  inferiority,  but  are  there  any  of 
superiority  ?  We  are  a  larger  and  more  heterogene- 
ous community  now  than  we  were  then ;  we  are  fuller 
of  commercial  activity ;  our  heads  are  in  newspapers 
and  ledgers,  and  not  as  the  heads  and  hearts  of  the 
early  New  England  fathers  were,  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. Nevertheless  it  was  a  temporarily  demoral- 
ized community  which  Whitefield  and  Edwards 
addressed.  A  practical  union  of  Church  and  State 
had  so  secularized  religious  society,  that  it  had 
sunk  farther  away  from  Scriptural  and  scientific 
ideals  than  such  society  in  New  England  has  since 
done.  We  all  hold  now  that  the  ministry  ought 
to  be  made  up  of  converted  men,  and  that  no  one 
should  become  a  member  of  the  church  unless  he  can 
give  credible  evidence  of  having  entered  upon  a  reli- 
gious life.  But  in  Whitefield's  day  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  insist  upon  what  is  now  a  commonplace 
truth,  that  conversion  should  precede  entrance  upon 
the  ministry  and  church-membership.  In  Edwards's 
day,  many  circles  of  the  New  England  population 


74  ORTHODOXY. 

had  forgotten  the  necessity  of  the  new  birth,  or  did 
not  believe  that  it  is  an  ascertainable  change ;  and 
so  there  was  a  hush  in  the  revival  when  Whitefield 
was  here,  a  sense  of  sin  which  ought  to  exist  now, 
but  which  probably  does  not  for  a  great  variety  of 
reasons,  not  all  of  them  to  be  classed  as  proofs  of  the 
shallowness  of  the  present  effort.  Would  that  we 
had  such  loyalty  to  the  scientific  method,  as  to  have 
an  adequate  sense  of  our  dissonance  with  the  nature 
of  things !  It  were  good  for  us  and  for  America  if 
we  had  in  Boston  to-day  just  that  far-penetrating 
gaze  which  filled  the  eyes  of  New  England  one  hun- 
dred years  ago,  as  Whitefield  and  Edwards  turned 
our  fathers'  countenances  toward  the  Unseen  Holy ! 

In  one  particular,  however,  this  revival  certainly 
surpasses  that  under  Whitefield  in  this  city  in  1740  ; 
namely,  in  the  extent  to  which  types  have  been  con- 
secrated to  the  work  of  sending  religious  truths 
abroad  through  the  newspaper  press.  All  the  lead- 
ing and  all  the  respectable  newspapers  of  Boston 
have  favored  the  revival.  [Applause.]  It  is  well, 
my  friends,  that  you  should  give  encouragement  to 
the  hardest-worked  class  in  your  community,  the 
reporters.  Not  only  day  and  night,  but  day  inside 
of  day,  and  night  inside  of  night,  making  two  hours 
out  of  every  one,  these  men  are  obliged  to  follow 
with  lightning  speed  the  demands  of  the  press  for 
copy  —  of  what?  Of  the  dullest  of  all  things  on 
earth  to  report,  —  sermons.  [Applause.]  English, 
German,  and  French  travellers  say  very  suggestively, 
that  the  characteristic  of  American  newspaper  man- 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH.  75 

agement,  as  distinguished  from  European,  is  that  we 
are  willing  to  print  sermons  copiously  on  Monday 
mornings.  No  doubt  it  pays  to  publish  such  dis- 
courses ;  but  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  think  that 
the  critics  are  right  who  judge  acutely  that  Mr. 
Sankey's  chief  motive  in  life  is  to  sell  a  great  number 
of  his  song-books  and  organs.  Neither  am  I  of  the 
opinion  that  all  the  space  the  daily  newspaper  press 
gives  to  religious  truth  is  the  result  of  a  whisper 
from  the  counting-room.  Let  us  be  just  to  the  cor- 
porations that  manage  our  newspapers,  and  not  accuse 
them  of  being  altogether  mercenary.  No  doubt 
counting-rooms  are  sometimes  hung  around  the  necks 
of  editors,  as  millstones  around  the  necks  of  babes  in 
the  waves ;  and  it  takes  a  giant  like  Horace  Greeley 
to  be  at  once  a  reformer  and  an  editor.  It  is  easier 
for  the  platform  than  for  the  press  to  speak  for  to- 
morrow against  the  dissent  of  to-day.  The  best 
part  of  our  press,  however,  not  only  mirrors  but 
leads  public  sentiment,  and  speaks  for  to-morrow 
against  the  rivalry  of  the  poorer  part  of  both  plat- 
form and  press,  which  speak  only  for  to-day.  En- 
courage all  speakers  for  to-morrow.  [Applause.] 

In  the  next  place,  it  deserves  to  be  mentioned,  that 
religious  visitation  from  house  to  house,  and  espe- 
cially among  the  perishing  and  degraded,  is  now  going 
forward  in  a  hopefully  thorough  manner  in  Boston. 
Gentlemen,  I  hold  in  my  hands  a  statement  commu- 
nicated to  me  officially ;  and  I  am  able  to  assure  you 
that  two  thousand  persons  are  now  devoting  a  large 
part  of  their  time  in  this  city  to  religious  visitation 


76  ORTHODOXY. 

• 

among  the  poor.  The  list  of  streets  and  lanes  given 
to  these  workers  was  made  out  by  Sampson  and  Dav- 
enport, the  publishers  of  the  city  Directory.  In  no 
other  population  has  there  been  a  more  effective  ar- 
rangement for  visitation  than  here.  God  be  thanked 
that  every  lane  is  to  be  seen,  and  that  superfluity  and 
squalor  are  to  look  into  each  other's  eyes !  Of  one 
hundred  and  ten  evangelical  churches  in  this  city, 
ninety  have  already  signified  their  intention  to  co- 
operate in  this  work.  Each  pastor  of  these  ninety 
churches  has  appointed  gentlemen  to  oversee  the 
work  undertaken  by  his  particular  church ;  for 
instance,  on  Beacon  Hill,  in  the  Mount  Vernon 
Church,  where  our  American  evangelist  heard  the 
truth  effectively  for  the  first  time  from  the  lips  of 
the  now  sainted  Kirk,  men  like  Nazro  and  Merriam 
are  appointed  on  this  business.  Is  there  any  one 
with  head  or  heart  shallow  enough  to  sneer  at  such 
proceedings  ?  You  will  sneer,  then,  at  the  best  ex- 
ecutive talent  of  Boston.  [Applause.]  There  are 
seventy  thousand  families  within  the  limits  of  Bos- 
ton, and  there  have  been  workers  appointed  to  cover 
sixty-five  thousand  of  these  families.  In  Boston  I 
include  Charlestown,  East  Boston,  South  Boston, 
Dorchester,  Roxbury,  and  Brighton.  We  are  to 
look  on  this  work  as  performed  by  picked  men  and 
women.  There  is  no  quarter  of  this  city  so  de- 
graded by  unreportable  vice  that  it  is  not  being  vis- 
ited by  women  ;  lineal  descendants,  no  doubt,  of  those 
whom  Tacitus  says  our  German  forefathers  honored 
as  recipients  of  special  illumination  from  heaven. 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S   FAITH.  77 

The  saloons  are  being  visited,  and  the  report  now 
coming  in  is  that  the  visitors  are  kindly  received; 
and  you  will  find  every  now  and  then  a  visitor  saying, 
"  There  are  in  my  district  fifteen  cases  of  interest,  or 
persons  seriously  inquiring  how  they  can  get  rid  of 
vice,  and  enter  upon  a  manly  or  womanly  life ;  and  I 
am  to  follow  these  cases  up."  Remember  that  this 
work  of  visitation  is  intended  not  merely  for  those 
who  are  outside  of  the  circle  of  glad  loyalty  to  re- 
ligious truth,  but  for  those  who  are  nominally  inside 
of  that  circle,  and  are  yet  inefficient.  Nothing  quick- 
ens a  man  like  trying  to  quicken  another.  If  there 
is  one  measure  in  which  our  American  evangelist  has 
shown  .his  generalship  more  effectively  than  any- 
where else,  it  is  in  setting  men  to  work,  and  in  so 
setting  them  to  work  as  to  set  them  on  fire.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

But,  gentlemen,  what  are  we  to  say  of  the  prayer- 
meetings  among  business-men,  which  have  not  yet 
attained  their  height,  and  yet  are  already  visible  at 
a  distance  ?  It  is  my  privilege  and  joy  to  be  a  flying 
scout  in  New  England.  One  morning  last  week,  I 
woke  up  to  the  sound  of  the  swollen  and  impetuous 
Androscoggin,  and  in  the  course  of  the  day  passed 
through  Portland,  and  Portsmouth,  and  Newburyport, 
and  Salem,  and  Boston,  and  Worcester,  and  Spring- 
field, to  Hartford ;  and  all  along  I  had  evidence  by 
conversation,  and  by  looking  at  the  local  papers, 
that  these  business-men's  meetings  in  Boston  are 
visible  from  the  Androscoggin,  and  from  the  Connecti- 
cut. You  have  in  this  Temple  a  very  interesting 


78  ORTHODOXY. 

meeting,  which  was  never  matched  for  weight  in 
Edinburgh.  There  are  crowded  prayer-meetings  at 
high  noon  for  men  engaged  in  the  dry-goods  business, 
for  men  in  the  furniture  trade,  for  men  in  the  mar- 
ket, for  men  in  the  fish  trade,  for  newspaper  men, 
for  all  classes,  indeed,  of  our  throbbing,  tumultuous, 
breathless,  business  community.  This,  if  you  will 
notice  the  fact,  is  Boston.  When  I  stated  on  this 
platform  a  few  weeks  ago,  that  you  would  see  Boston 
visited  as  you  had  seen  other  cities  visited,  you  did 
not  receive  the  affirmation  with  a  smile  of  incre- 
dulity ;  but  the  public  did.  That  poor  prophecy  has 
been  fulfilled,  and  we  have  a  month  more  for  work. 
[Applause.] 

If  you  please,  the  times  are  serious;  and  light 
sneers  will  do  no  good  now,  and  ought  not  to  be 
noticed  by  me  except  in  pity.  It  was  my  fortune 
professionally  to  walk  down  to  a  church  near  the 
Tabernacle  yesterday  morning,  to  give  an  Easter 
discourse.  As  I  passed  up  the  street,  I  met  a  deluge, 
not  of  rain,  such  as  has  diminished  the  audiences  in 
the  Tabernacle  occasionally,  —  the  month  of  March 
is  a  great  enemy  to  large  assemblies,  —  but  a  crowd 
of  people  emerging  from  I  did  not  at  first  think 
where,  until  I  remembered  that  the  Tabernacle  ser- 
vice had  just  closed.  They  covered  acres,  and  came 
on  in  thousands,  like  the  crowds  of  a  gala-day.  ~ 
noticed  their  faces ;  for  the  best  test  of  what  has  been 
done  in  a  religious  address,  in  any  assembly,  is  to 
study  the  countenances  of  the  audience  as  it  dis- 
perses. If  you  see  a  softened,  an  ennobled,  a  "  solar 


THE   TRINITY,   THE   MARTYR'S   FAITH.  79 

look,"  to  use  one  of  the  phrases  of  Bronson  Alcott 
[turning  to  Mr.  Alcott,  who  sat  at  the  speaker's 
right],  one  may  be  sure  that  religious  truth  has  done 
good.  I  saw  the  solar  look  yesterday  on  the  street, 
in  hundreds  and  thousands  of  faces ;  I  saw  it  some- 
times in  the  gaze  of  shop-girls,  perhaps. 

Yes,  but  high  culture  in  Boston  does  not  care 
much  for  shop-girls.  Well,  it  is  time  it  should. 
[Applause.]  There  is  a  low-bred,  loaferish  liberal- 
ism, uttering  itself  occasionally  in  sneers  because  the 
poor  have  the  gospel  preached  to  them.  That  sneer 
has  been  heard  ever  since  the  days  of  Celsus,  and  the 
games  in  the  old  Coliseum ;  and  it  has  a  peculiarly 
reptilian  ring.  [Applause.]  There  are  many  kinds 
of  liberalism.  Christian  liberalism  I  honor;  literary 
and  aesthetic  liberalism  is  to  be  spoken  of  with  re- 
spect, in  most  cases ;  but  below  what  I  have  called  £ 
limp  and  lavender,  and  unscientific  liberalism,  there  is 
a  low-bred  and  loaferish  liberalism.  This,  in  Boston, 
has  impudence,  but  no  scholarship;  rattles,  but  no 
fangs.  [Applause.]  In  the  great  multitude,  the 
solar  look  is  the  best  prophecy  that  can  be  had  for 
the  American  future.  It  is  a  radiance  that  is  like 
the  rising  of  the  sun,  to  any  man  who  is  anxious 
about  what  is  to  come  in  America. 

After  noticing  that  look,  and  thanking  God  for  it, 
I  walked  on,  and  happened  to  pass  a  lonely  Boston 
corner,  where  the  Paine  Hall  and  the  Parker  Memo- 
rial Hall  stand  near  each  other,  "par  nobile  fra- 
trum"  On  a  bulletin  on  the  Paine  Hall,  the  street 
in  front  of  which  looked  deserted,  I  read:  "Chil- 


80  ORTHODOXY. 

dren's  Progressive  Lyceum  Entertainment  this  even- 
ing ; "  "  The  Origin  and  Amusements  of  the  Ortho- 
dox Hell ; "  "  Twenty-ninth  Anniversary  of  Modern 
Spiritualism,  April  1"  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
Passing  by  the  Parker  Memorial  Hall,  where,  no 
doubt,  words  of  good  sense  have  been  uttered  occa- 
sionally, I  found  in  the  window  this  statement : 
"  To-night,  a  lecture  on  the  Arctic  Regions,  with  a 
stereopticon  and  seventy  views." 

Gentlemen,  all  over  the  world,  the  equivalent  of 
the  scene  I  saw  on  that  Easter  morn  may  be  looked 
upon  almost  everywhere  within  the  whole  domain  of 
Christendom.  Infidelity  in  Germany  is  no  stronger 
than  it  is  in  Boston.  Out  of  the  thirty  universities 
of  that  most  learned  land  of  the  globe,  only  one  is 
called  rationalistic  to-day. 

When  the  sun  stands  above  Bunker  Hill  at  noon, 
it  has  just  set  on  the  Parthenon,  and  is  rising  on  the 
volcanoes  of  the  Sandwich  Isles.  As  Easter  Day 
passed  about  the  globe,  the  contrasted  scenes  which 
the  sun  saw  here — a  multitude  fed  with  God's  word, 
and  a  few  erratics  striving  to  solace  themselves  with- 
out God  —  were  not  unlike  the  scenes  which  the 
resplendent  orb  looked  down  upon  in  the  whole 
range  of  civilization.  In  two  hundred  languages  of 
the  world,  the  Scriptures  were  read  yesterday;  in 
two  hundred  languages  of  the  world,  hymns  were 
lifted  to  the  Triune  name  yesterday ;  in  two  hundred 
languages  of  the  world,  the  gospel  was  preached  to 
the  poor  yesterday. 

What  is  our  impecunious  scepticism  doing  here  ? 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S   FAITH.  81 

Has  it  ever  printed  a  book  that  has  commanded 
permanent  intellectual  respect?  Theodore  Parker's 
collected  works  never  went  into  a  second  edition. 
I  do  not  know  of  a  single  infidel  book  over  a  hundred 
years  old  that  has  not  been  put  on  the  upper  neglected 
shelf  by  scholars.  Boston  must  compare  her  achieve- 
ments with  those  of  cities  outside  of  America,  and 
take  her  chances  under  the  bufferings  of  time.  Where 
is  there  in  Boston  any  thing  in  the  shape  of  scepticism 
that  will  bear  the  microscope  ?  For  one,  I  solemnly 
aver  that  I  do  not  know  where,  and  I  have  nothing 
else  to  do  but  search.  Theodore  Parker  is  the  best 
sceptic  you  ever  had ;  but,  to  me,  he  is  honeycombed 
through  and  through  with  disloyalty  to  the  very  na- 
ture of  things,  —  his  supreme  authority.  [Applause.] 
It  was  asserted  not  long  ago,  in  an  obscure  sceptical 
newspaper  here,  that  Parker's  works  ought  to  be 
forced  into  a  second  edition  by  his  friends.  It  was 
admitted  that  there  was  no  demand  for  a  second 
edition ;  but  it  was  thought,  that,  if  now  there  was 
an  effort  made  strategetically,  one  might  be  put  upon 
the  market.  You  have  no  better  books  than  these, 
and  there  has  been  no  marked  demand  in  Boston  for 
these ;  and  the  attentive  portion  of  the  world  knows 
the  facts.  Why  am  I  proclaiming  this?  Because, 
outside  of  Boston,  it  is  often  carelessly  supposed  that 
the  facts  are  the  reverse,  and  that  this  city  is  repre- 
sented only  by  a  few  people,  who,  deficient  in  religious 
activity,  and  forgetting  the  law  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  are  distinguished  far  more  by  audacity 
than  by  scholarship,  and  are  members  of  a  long  line 
in  history,  of  which  Gallio  stood  at  the  head. 


82  ORTHODOXY. 

Let  me  mention  as  a  fourth  prominent  trait  in  this 
revival,  the  great  effort  made  for  temperance.  We 
have  done  more  in  that  particular  than  was  done  in 
Whitefield's  day ;  for  in  his  tune  men  were  not  awake 
on  that  theme.  It  is  a  good  sign  to  see  the  Church 
and  secular  effort  join  hands.  It  is  a  good  sign  when 
our  American  evangelist  himself  can  say,  as  he  said 
yesterday,  "I  have  been  a  professing  Christian 
twenty-two  years,  and  I  have  been  in  Boston  and 
other  cities  for  most  of  that  time ;  and  I  never  saw 
such  a  day  as  this  is.  I  stand  in  wonder  and  amaze- 
ment at  what  is  being  done.  It  seems  as  if  God 
were  taking  this  work  out  of  our  hands.  Prayer- 
meetings  are  springing  up  in  all  parts  of  the  city. 
If  you  were  asked  two  months  ago  if  these  things 
were  possible,  you  would  have  said,  l  Yes,  if  God  will 
open  the  windows  of  heaven,  and  do  them.'  " 

Let  us  admit  that  we  could  all  wish  for  greater 
blessings.  Macaulay  said,  concerning  literary  excel- 
lence, that  we  were  to  measure  success  not  by  abso- 
lute, but  by  relative  standards.  Matching  his  own 
history  against  the  seventh  book  of  Thucydides, 
he  was  always  humble;  but,  matching  it  against 
current  productions,  Macaulay  felt  encouraged. 
Matching  this  day  in  Boston  against  some  things  in 
Whitefield's  day,  matching  it  against  the  dateless 
noon  of  Pentecost,  matching  it  against  our  opportu- 
nities, we  are  humble ;  we  have  no  reason  for  elation ; 
ours  is  a  day  of  small  things.  But  compare  what 
has  been  done  here  by  God's  word,  and  religious 
effort,  with  all  that  has  been  done  since  Boston  was 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S   FAITH.  83 

founded  by  the  opponents  of  God's  word,  and  we 
are  encouraged.     [Applause.] 

Our  opportunity  in  the  second  New  England  is 
greater  than  that  of  our  fathers  was  in  the  first  New 
England.  Let  us  act  as  the  memory  of  our  fathers 
dictates.  New  England,  the  Mississippi  Valley,  the 
Pacific  coast,  Scotland,  England,  always  know  whether 
or  not  Boston  does  her  duty.  A  power  not  of  man  is 
in  this  hushed  air.  Who  will  lock  hands  with  Him 
whom  we  dare  not  name,  and  go  forward  to  triumph 
in  the  cause  that  cares  equally  for  the  rich  and  the 
poor,  and  for  to-day  and  to-morrow  ?  [Applause.] 

THE    LECTURE. 

When  the  Christian  martyr  Pionius  was  asked  by 
his  judges,  "What  God  dost  thou  worship?"  he 
replied :  "  I  worship  Him  who  made  the  heavens,  and 
who  beautified  them  with  stars,  and  who  has  enriched 
the  earth  with  flowers  and  trees."  —  "  Dost  thou  mean," 
asked  the  magistrates,  "Him  who  was  crucified?" 
(ilium  dicis  qui  crucifixus  est.*)  "  Certainly,"  replied 
Pionius ;  "  Him  whom  the  Father  sent  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  world."  (RuiNART,  Acta,  p.  125.  See 
LIDDON'S  Bampton  Lectures,  p.  409.)  As  Pionius 
died,  so  died  Blandina  and  the  whole  host  of  those 
who  in  the  first  three  centuries,  without  knowing  any 
thing  of  the  Nicene  Creed,  held  it  implicitly,  if  not 
explicitly,  and  proclaimed  it  in  flames  and  in  dun- 
geons, in  famine  and  in  nakedness,  under  the  rack 
and  under  the  sword. 

On  the  JSgean  Sea,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Acrop- 


84  ORTHODOXY. 

oils,  there  were  undoubtedly  sung  yesterday,  in  the 
Greek  cathedrals,  words  which  were  written  in  the 
second  century :  — 

"  Hail,  gladdening  Light,  of  his  pure  glory  poured, 

Who  is  the  Immortal  Father,  heavenly  blest, 
Holiest  of  Holies,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord! 

Now  we  are  come  to  the  sun's  hour  of  rest, 
The  lights  of  evening  around  us  shine ; 
We  hymn  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  divine: 
Worthiest  art  thou  at  all  times  to  be  sung 

With  undefiled  tongue, 
Son  of  our  God,  Giver  of  life  alone, 
Therefore,  in  all  the  world,  thy  glories,  Lord,  we  own." 
(See  original  in  ROUTH'S  Reliquce  Sacrce,  iii.,  p.  515.) 

This  poem  is  yet  a  vesper  hymn  in  the  Greek 
Church,  and  St.  Basil  quotes  it  in  the  third  century. 
It  and  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  and  the  Ter  Sanc- 
tus,  which  yesterday  rolled  around  the  world,  were 
written  in  the  second  century,  to  pay  absolutely  di- 
vine honors  to  our  Lord. 

WHen  I  open  the  best  book  which  unevangelical 
Christianity  ever  printed  in  Boston,  —  James  Free- 
man Clarke's  Truths  and  Errors  about  Orthodoxy  — 
no!  "Truths  and  Errors  of  Orthodoxy,"  but  the  first 
would  have  been  a  better  title  [applause],  —  I  read: 
"Down  to  the  time  of  the  Synod  of  Nice,  Anno 
Domini  325,  no  doctrine  of  Trinity  existed  in  the 
Church"  (p.  508).  Will  that  statement  bear  the 
microscope  of  historical  science?  If  it  will,  I  wish 
to  believe  it,  and  to  reject  every  thing  inconsistent 
with  it. 


THE   TRINITY,    THE   MARTYR'S   FAITH.  85 

But  I  hold  in  my  hands  this  Greek  vesper-hymn 
and  this  Ter  Sanctus  and  this  Gloria  in  Excel- 
sis,  written  in  the  second  century.  What  do  they 
mean  ?  The  dying  words  of  martyrs  for  three  cen- 
turies are  all  in  harmony  with  the  present  faith 
of  the  Christian  world. 

Here  is  this  statement  of  the  emperor  Adrian,  who, 
when  writing  to  Servian,  described  the  population  of 
Alexandria  as  divided  between  the  worship  of  Christ 
and  the  worship  of  Serapis :  Ab  aliis  Serapidem,  ab 
aliis  adorari  Christum.  (Apud  LAMPRID,  in  Vita 
Alex.  Severi). 

About  A.D.  165  Lucian  says :  "  The  Christians  are 
still  worshipping  that  great  man  who  was  crucified  in 
Palestine"  (JDe  Morte  Perigrini,  c.  11). 

Remember  Pliny's  explicit  official  letter  to  Tra- 
jan, affirming  that  cross-examination  and  torture  had 
elicited  from  the  martyrs  only  the  statement  that 
"  they  were  accustomed  to  meet  on  a  stated  day,  and 
sing  a  hymn  to  Christ  as  god,"  and  to  pledge  them- 
selves by  a  sacrament  to  abstain  from  evil  of  every 
kind  (PLINY,  Ep.,  lib.  x.  Ep.  97).  The  Ter  Sanctus 
and  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  show  us  what  meaning  to 
put  upon  Pliny's  words,  Carmenque  Christo,  quasi 
Deo. 

Calvisianus  said  to  the  martyr  Euplius,  "  Pay  wor- 
ship to  Mars,  Apollo,  and  Esculapius."  Euplius  re- 
plied, "I  worship  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.  I  adore  the  Holy  Trinity,  besides  whom 
there  is  no  God.  Perish  the  gods  who  did  not  make 
heaven  and  earth,  and  all  that  is  in  them !  I  am  a 
Christian  "  (RurNART,  Acta,  p.  362). 


86  OETHODOXY. 

The  followers  of  Artemon  maintained  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  was  brought  into  the  Church  at  a 
late  day.  A  writer  quoted  by  Eusebius  observed  in 
reply,  that  the  psalms  and  the  hymns  of  the  brethren, 
which  from  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity  had  been 
written  by  the  faithful,  all  celebrate  Christ,  the  Word 
of  God,  proclaiming  his  Divinity  (EusEBius,  Hist. 
Eccl.,  v.  28). 

Is  it  true,  my  friends,  that  there  was  no  doctrine 
of  the  Triune  name  before  the  year  325  ?  Or,  if  you 
admit  there  was  a  Triune  name  before  that  date,  do 
you  deny  that  these  martyrs,  who  died  with  prayers 
to  Christ  as  God,  knew  what  they  were  about  ? 

Follow  up  the  unimpeached  record,  and  you  will 
find  it  beyond  controversy  that  the  first  three  cen- 
turies taught  explicitly  the  doctrine  of  the  Triune 
name.  Was  that  a  practical  truth  ? 

To  be  analytical,  in  order  that,  if  possible,  I  may 
be  clear,  let  me  say  that  I  wish  to  show  by  detailed 
documentary  evidence,  that  the  ante-Nicene  Christian 
literature  proves  that  in  the  first  three  centuries  the 
Church  held  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

1.  This  literature  copiously  asserts  that  Christ  pos- 
sessed proper  Deity. 

2.  It  teaches  copiously  that  believers  are  saved  by 
the  atonement  made  by  our  Lord. 

3.  It  affirms  abundantly  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  a 
present  Christ. 

4.  It  everywhere  proclaims  that  God,  as  three  and 
one,  is  omnipresent  in  natural  law. 

5.  These  must  be  regarded  as  the  most  practical 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH.  87 

of  all  religious  truths,  if  judged  by  the  work  they 
have  done.  They  were  the  inspiration  of  martyrs' 
lives,  and  the  solace  of  martyrs'  deaths. 

6.  These  truths  contain  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
implicitly,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  contains 
them  implicitly  and  explicitly. 

7.  That  doctrine,  therefore,  is  the  teaching  of  the 
first  three  Christian  centuries. 

Gentlemen,  we  are  to-day  to  breathe  the  spring-time 
of  Christianity.  The  sights  and  the  sounds  of  that 
period  may  well  move  us,  for  they  have  conquered  the 
world.  We  are  to  gaze  upon  an  age  which  is  re- 
nowned now,  and  is  to  be  more  and  more  renowned 
as  the  centuries  roll  on,  as  that  of  the  Apostolic  Fa- 
thers. I  hold  in  my  hand,  the  first  volume  of  a  cele- 
brated series  of  books  (published  by  T.  and  T.  Clark  of 
Edinburgh),  called  the  "  Ante-Nicene  Library ;  "  that 
is,  Christian  documents  existing  before  the  Nicene 
Council  was  called  together  in  325.  I  am  to  read  to 
you  nothing  upon  which  I  have  not  put  elaborate 
study ;  but  that  fact  is  not  assurance  that  I  am  right. 
The  world  has  boxed  about  these  documents  in  close 
controversy  for  fifteen  hundred  years;  and,  if  any 
thing  is  known  about  history,  it  is  known  that  the 
select  passages  I  am  to  present  to  you  are  genuine 
records  of  the  first  three  centuries.  Do  not  think 
that  I  forget,  although  I  cannot  mention  here  in  de- 
tail, how  much  is  interpolated  here,  and  spurious; 
but  scholarship  has  been  walking  over  this  record 
until  it  has  found  every  boggy  spot  in  it ;  and  I  am  to 
have  you  put  your  feet  now  only  on  a  few  stepping- 


88  OETHODOXY. 

stones  which  infidelity  itself  considers  firm  as  ada- 
mant, so  far  as  their  historical  genuineness  is  con- 
cerned. 

There  is  a  marvellous  church  of  St.  Clement,  near 
the  Coliseum,  in  Rome.  You  remember  the  words, 
"Rejoice  always;  and  again  I  say,  Rejoice"  (Phil, 
iv.  4).  In  the  verse  preceding  this,  St.  Paul  men- 
tions a  certain  Clement  of  Rome ;  and  that  Clement 
is  supposed  to  be  the  author  of  this  letter,  which 
now,  in  the  year  1877,  in  Boston,  you  may  hold  in 
your  hands,  and  which  was  sent  from  Rome  to  Cor- 
inth, by  one  church  to  admonish  another  in  a  majestic 
age  of  the  world.  Clement,  the  author  of  this  epis- 
tle, is  known  to  have  written  it  about  the  year  97. 
By  common  consent  he  is  regarded  as  one  of  the 
pupils  of  St.  Paul.  This  epistle  Eusebius  calls  "  great 
and  admirable,"  and  says  that  it  was  very  often  read 
in  the  churches  before  and  during  his  day  (EuSE- 
BIUS,  iii.  16). 

Purposely  I  avoid  following  analytically  the  order 
of  the  propositions  I  am  defending,  but  at  hap-hazard 
almost  I  take  passages  out  of  this  unspeakably  elec- 
tric record ;  and  you  shall  judge  whether  or  not  all 
that  my  propositions  assert  is  here  implied. 

"  Content  with  the  provision  which  God  had  made  for  you, 
and  carefully  attending  to  his  words,  ye  were  inwardly  filled 
with  his  doctrine,  and  his  sufferings  [whose  sufferings?  God's 
sufferings]  were  before  your  eyes.  Thus  a  profound  and  abun- 
dant peace  was  given  to  you  all,  and  ye  had  an  insatiable  desire 
for  doing  good,  while  a  full  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
upon  you  all.  Full  of  holy  designs,  ye  did,  with  true  earnest- 
ness of  mind,  and  a  godly  confidence,  stretch  forth  your  hands 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S   FAITH.  89 

to  God  Almighty,  beseeching  him  to  be  merciful  unto  you,  if  ye 
had  been  guilty  of  any  involuntary  transgression.  Day  and 
night  ye  were  anxious  for  the  whole  brotherhood,  that  the  num- 
ber of  God's  elect  might  be  saved  with  mercy  and  a  good  con- 
science" (p.  8). 

How  fresh  is  this  breeze,  as  from  spring  hill-sides, 
— the  bursting  April  of  Christianity!  It  is  written 
in  the  record  of  a  day  which  dawned  on  the  world 
eighteen  hundred  and  forty-eight  years  ago  yester- 
day (LEWES,  Fausti  Scari),  that  while  it  was  yet  dark 
Mary  Magdalen  came  to  the  sepulchre,  and  the  be- 
loved disciple  and  Peter  also ;  and  that,  although  the 
beloved  disciple  outran  his  companion,  Peter  went 
first  into  the  sepulchre.  It  was  yet  dark  then ;  but 
is  it  not  getting  to  be,  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
when  this  letter  was  written,  gray  brindled  dawn  ? 
Remember  what  persecution  surged  around  the 
Church,  out  of  which  came  these  words  with  a  tone 
that  belongs  only  to  spiritual  greatness  of  the  first 
rank:  — 

"  Let  us  set  before  our  eyes  the  illustrious  apostles.  Peter, 
through  unrighteous  envy,  endured  not  one  or  two,  but  numer- 
ous labors ;  and,  when  he  had  at  length  suffered  martyrdom,  de- 
parted to  the  place  of  glory  due  to  him.  Paul  also  obtained  the 
reward  of  patient  endurance,  after  being  seven  times  thrown 
into  captivity,  compelled  to  flee,  and  stoned.  After  preaching 
both  in  the  east  and  west,  he  gained  the  illustrious  reputation 
due  to  his  faith,  having  taught  righteousness  to  the  whole 
world;  and,  come  to  the  extreme  limit  of  the  west,  he  suffered 
martyrdom  under  the  prefects  "  (p.  11). 

"  We  are  struggling  in  the  same  arena,  and  the  same  conflict 
is  assigned  to  us  "  (p.  12). 


90  ORTHODOXY. 

What  historic  majesty  there  is  in  this  language!  — 

"  Wherefore  [what?  Here  is  revealed  the  martyr's  inner  sky] 
let  us  give  up  vain  and  fruitless  cares,  and  approach  to  the  glo- 
rious and  venerable  rule  of  our  holy  calling.  Let  us  attend  to 
what  is  good,  pleasing,  and  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  Hun  who 
formed  us.  Let  us  look  steadfastly  to  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  see 
how  precious  that  blood  is  to  God,  which,  having  been  shed  for  our 
salvation,  has  set  the  grace  of  repentance  before  the  whole  world  " 
(P-  12). 

Will  Boston  in  this  far  day  listen  to  Clement  of 
Rome,  speaking  in  the  year  97  ? 

When  I  turn  to  that  really  sublime  document,  the 
Epistle  of  Diognetus,  which  scholars  here  will  thank 
me  for  citing,  I  come  upon  this  passage,  written  in 
the  second  century :  — 

"  Truly  God  himself,  who  is  almighty,  the  Creator  of  all 
things,  and  invisible,  has  sent  from  heaven  and  placed  among 
men  [Him  who  is]  the  truth,  and  the  holy  and  incomprehensible 
Word,  and  has  firmly  established  him  in  their  hearts.  He  did 
not,  as  one  might  have  imagined,  send  to  men  any  servant  or 
angel,  but  the  very  Creator  and  Fashioner  of  all  things,  by 
whom  he  made  the  heavens,  by  whom  he  enclosed  the  sea  within 
its  proper  bounds,  whose  ordinances  all  the  stars  faithfully  ob- 
serve, from  whom  the  sun  has  received  the  measure  of  his  daily 
course  to  be  observed;  whom  the  moon  obeys,  being  commanded 
to  shine  in  the  night ;  and  whom  the  stars  also  obey,  following 
the  moon  in  her  course ;  by  whom  all  things  have  been  arranged 
and  placed  within  their  proper  limits,  and  to  whom  all  are  sub- 
ject,—  the  heavens  and  the  things  that  are  therein,  the  earth 
and  the  things  that  are  therein,  the  sea  and  the  things  that  are 
therein;  fire,  air,  and  the  abyss;  the  things  which  are  in  the 
heights,  the  things  which  are  in  the  depths,  and  the  things 
which  lie  between.  This  [messenger]  he  sent  to  them.  As  a 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH.  91 

king  sends  his  son,  who  is  also  a  king,  so  sent  he  him;  as  God 
he  sent  him ;  as  to  men  he  sent  him ;  as  a  Saviour  he  sent  him  " 
(pp.  309,  310). 

If  this  amazing  passage  asserts  the  Deity  of  our 
Lord,  does  not  the  next  copiously  teach  the  atone- 
ment? 

"  He  himself  took  on  him  the  burden  of  our  iniquities:  he 
gave  his  own  Son  as  a  ransom  for  us,  —  the  holy  One  for  trans- 
gressors, the  blameless  One  for  the  wicked,  the  righteous  One 
for  the  unrighteous,  the  incorruptible  One  for  the  corruptible, 
the  immortal  One  for  them  that  are  mortal.  For  what  other 
thing  was  capable  of  covering  our  sins  than  his  righteousness? 
By  what  other  one  was  it  possible  that  we,  the  wicked  and  un- 
godly, could  be  justified,  than  by  the  only  Son  of  God?  O  sweet 
exchange!  O  unsearchable  operation!  O  benefits  surpassing 
all  expectation !  that  the  wickedness  of  many  should  be  hid  in  a 
single  righteous  One,  and  that  the  righteousness  of  One  should 
justify  many  transgressors!  Having,  therefore,  convinced  us  in 
the  former  time,  that  our  nature  was  unable  to  attain  to  life,  and 
having  now  revealed  the  Saviour,  who  is  able  to  save  even  those 
things  which  it  was  (formerly)  impossible  to  save,  by  both  these 
facts  he  desired  to  lead  us  to  trust  in  his  kindness,  to  esteem 
him  our  Nourisher,  Father,  Teacher,  Counsellor,  Healer,  our 
Wisdom,  Light,  Honor,  Glory,  Power,  and  Life"  (pp.  312, 
313). 

' '  This  is  He  who  was  from  the  beginning,  who  appeared  as 
if  new,  and  was  found  old,  and  yet  who  is  ever  born  afresh  in 
the  hearts  of  the  saints.  This  is  He,  who,  being  from  everlast- 
ing, is  to-day  called  the  Son ;  through  whom  the  Church  is  en- 
riched, and  grace,  widely  spread,  increases  in  the  saints,  fur- 
nishing understanding,  revealing  mysteries,  announcing  times, 
rejoicing  over  the  faithful,  giving  to  those  that  seek,  by  whom 
the  limits  of  faith  are  not  broken  through,  nor  the  boundaries 
set  by  the  fathers  passed  over.  Then  the  fear  of  the  law  is 


92  ORTHODOXY. 

chanted,  and  the  grace  of  the  prophets  is  known,  and  the  faith 
of  the  Gospels  is  established,  and  the  tradition  of  the  apostles  is 
preserved,  and  the  grace  of  the  Church  exults  "  (p.  315). 

But  now  I  open  another  document  of  equal  inter- 
est, and  read  in  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp,  written  about 
the  middle  of  the  second  century :  — 

"  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  to  him  all  things  in  heaven  and  on 
earth  are  subject.  Him  every  spirit  serves.  He  comes  as  the 
Judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead.  But  He  who  raised  him  up 
from  the  dead  will  raise  up  us  also,  if  we  do  his  will,  and  walk 
in  his  commandments,  and  love  what  he  loved  "  (p.  70). 

I  turn  on,  my  friends,  and  find  in  the  shorter  re- 
cension of  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,  notice  I  say  the 
shorter,  this  statement :  — 

"  He  who  possesses  the  word  of  Jesus  is  truly  able  to  hear 
even  his  very  silence,  that  he  may  be  perfect,  and  may  both  act 
as  he  speaks,  and  be  recognized  by  his  silence.  There  is  noth- 
ing which  is  hid  from  God;  but  our  very  secrets  are  near  to 
him.  Let  us,  therefore,  do  all  things  as  those  who  have  him 
dwelling  in  us,  that  we  may  be  his  temples,  and  he  may  be 
in  us  as  our  God;  which  indeed  he  is  "  (p.  163). 

Is  there  nothing  in  this  early  religion  at  which 
modern  culture  may  sneer?  In  all  my  reading  of 
antiquity  outside  the  Scriptures,  I  have  never  met  a 
passage  in  prose  equal  for  poetic  power  to  the  one 
I  am  about  to  pronounce  before  you,  nor  one  that  is 
half  as  worthy  as  this  to  be  held  up  in  the  light  of 
modern  science :  — 

"  The  heavens  revolving  under  his  government  are  subject 
to  him  in  peace.  Day  and  night  run  the  course  appointed  by 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S  FAITH.  93 

him,  in  no  wise  hindering  each  other.  The  sun  and  moon, 
•with  the  companies  of  the  stars,  roll  on  in  harmony  according 
to  his  command,  within  their  prescribed  limits,  and  without 
any  deviation.  The  fruitful  earth,  according  to  his  will, 
brings  forth  food  in  abundance,  at  the  proper  seasons,  for  man 
and  beast,  and  all  the  living  beings  upon  it,  never  hesitating, 
nor  changing  any  of  the  ordinances  which  he  has  fixed.  The 
unsearchable  places  of  the  abysses,  and  the  indescribable  ar- 
rangements of  the  lower  world,  are  restrained  by  the  same  laws. 
The  vast  immeasurable  sea,  gathered  together  by  his  working, 
into  various  basins,  never  passes  beyond  the  bounds  placed 
around  it,  but  does  as  he  has  commanded.  The  ocean,  impas- 
sable to  man,  and  the  worlds  beyond  it,  are  regulated  by  the 
same  enactments  of  the  Lord.  The  seasons  of  spring,  summer, 
autumn,  and  whiter,  peacefully  give  place  to  one  another.  The 
winds  in  their  several  quarters  fulfil  at  the  proper  time  their 
service  without  hinderance.  The  ever-flowing  fountains,  formed 
both  for  enjoyment  and  health,  furnish  without  fail  their  breasts 
for  the  life  of  men.  Take  heed,  beloved,  lest  his  many  kind- 
nesses lead  to  the  condemnation  of  us  all  "  (pp.  21,  22). 

"  The  Creator  and  Lord  of  all  himself  rejoices  in  his  works; 
for  by  his  infinitely  great  power  he  established  the  heavens, 
and  by  his  incomprehensible  wisdom  he  adorned  them.  He 
also  divided  the  earth  from  the  water  which  surrounds  it,  and 
fixed  it  upon  the  immovable  foundation  of  his  own  will.  The 
animals  also  which  are  upon  it  he  commanded  by  his  own 
word  into  existence.  So,  likewise,  when  he  had  formed  the  sea, 
and  the  living  creatures  which  are  in  it,  he  enclosed  them 
within  their  proper  bounds  by  his  own  power.  Above  all,  with 
his  holy  and  undefiled  hands  he  formed  man  "  (pp.  30). 

"  How  blessed  and  wonderful,  beloved,  are  the  gifts  of  God! 
—  life  in  immortality,  splendor  in  righteousness,  truth  in  perfect 
confidence,  faith  in  assurance,  self-control  in  holiness !  And  all 
these  fall  under  the  cognizance  of  understandings  (now) ;  what, 
then,  shall  those  things  be  which  are  prepared  for  such  as  wait 
for  him?  The  Creator  and  Father  of  all  worlds,  the  Most  Holy 
alone,  knows  their  amount  and  their  beauty  "  (pp.  31,  32). 


94  ORTHODOXY. 

Does  Concord  furnish  any  thing  better  than  that  ? 
It  is  pantheism,  you  say?  It  is  Christian  theism 
in  the  first  century,  uttering  itself  in  majestic  tones 
fit  to  be  matched  with  the  anthems  of  the  latest 
investigation.  [Applause.] 

So  spoke  Clement,  and  he  is  a  pupil  of  Paul,  and  is 
to  be  interpreted  in  part  by  his  master ;  and,  if  you 
put  Paul  and  Clement  together,  the  meaning  of  one 
and  of  the  other  is  doubly  clear,  as  is  the  light  in 
two  mirrors  when  they  face  each  other. 

Old  Rome  is  alive.  When  I  entered  for  the  first 
tune  the  Eternal  City,  I  purposely  came  in  by  the  last 
light  of  day,  and  under  the  earliest  stars.  I  took 
pains  not  to  meet  with  any  thing  inartistic  or  trivial. 
I  put  myself  in  a  carriage,  and  did  not  look  outside 
of  it  until  I  reached  my  rooms,  and  next  morning 
kept  my  eyes  inside  a  carriage  until  I  was  in  presence 
of  the  Coliseum.  That  was  the  first  object  I  saw  in 
Rome.  Mrs.  Browning's  words  were  constantly  in 
my  thoughts :  — 

"  And  the  mountains  in  disdain 

Gather  back  their  lights  of  opal 
From  the  dumb,  despondent  plain, 
Heaped  with  jaw-bones  of  a  people." 

Caesar  and  Antony  were  near,  and  Cicero  and  Sal- 
lust,  and  Horace  and  Virgil,  and  Cato  and  Seneca, 
and  Nero  and  the  rest.  After  days  and  weeks  of 
trance  I  obtained  a  better  historic  sense.  Suddenly, 
among  the  marbles  in  St.  Clement's  Church,  I  re- 
membered Mrs.  Browning's  other  words :  — 

"  Caesar's  work  is  all  undone;  " 


THE  TRINITY,   THE  MARTYR'S   FAITH.  95 

but  Clement's  is  not,  Peter's  not,  Paul's  not.  The 
feet  of  these  men,  too,  fell  on  the  seven  hills ;  and 
their  work  endures.  In  the  Catacombs,  the  gray 
crypts  of  volcanic  stone  seemed  to  be  the  nursery  of 
America,  because  the  cradle  of  Christianity  when  it 
was  preparing  to  ascend  that  throne  of  the  Caesars 
from  which  it  has  not  yet  come  down.  When  in  the 
Coliseum  at  midnight,  and  in  the  Forum  at  noon,  the 
tallest  of  the  historic  forms  that  filled  the  living  air 
seemed  to  be  those  of  the  Christian  martyrs,  for  they 
have  ruled  the  world  as  Csesar  has  not.  In  the 
Coliseum,  I  came  at  last  to  understand  Kichter's 
words  :  "  Here  coiled  the  giant  Snake  five  times  about 
Christianity ;  but  the  Serpent  and  the  Bear  crouch. 
Broken  asunder  are  the  gigantic  spokes  of  the  wheel 
which  once  the  stream  of  the  ages  drove"  (TiTAx). 
In  the  azure  heights  of  the  outer  and  inner  sky  the 
wheel  of  the  universe  moves  on  without  variableness 
in  its  motion,  or  shadow  of  change. 

Was  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  early  Christians  a  pres- 
ent Christ? 

To  them  was  God  as  three  and  one,  omnipresent 
in  natural  law  ? 

All  history  since  the  Ascension  proclaims  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  breathed  out  to-day  is  one  with  that, 
which,  eighteen  hundred  and  a  few  more  years  ago 
last  evening,  was  breathed  upon  the  disciples  with 
the  words,  "Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost."  [Ap- 
plause.] 


IV. 

THEODORE  PARKER'S  SELF-CONTRADICTIONS, 

THE   SEVENTY-THIRD  LECTURE    IN    THE   BOSTON  MONDAY  LEC- 
TURESHIP,  DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE   APRIL  9. 


"  THB  law  of  contradiction  vindicates  itself.    It  cannot  be  denied 
without  being  assented  to."  —  FEKKIEE:  Ins.  of  Met.  p.  21. 

"  SUOT  et  belli,  sicut  pads  jura." — LIVT. 


IV. 


THEODORE     PARKER'S    SELF-CONTRADIC- 
TIONS. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

THE  Spaniards  have  a  proverb  which  says,  "An 
ounce  of  mother  is  worth  a  pound  of  clergy."  An 
ounce  of  conduct  is  worth  a  ton  of  reading.  An  ounce 
of  self-surrender  to  truth  already  possessed  is  worth 
a  planet's  weight  of  truth  not  transmuted  into  deeds. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  so  important  to  give  attention  to 
select  reading  in  the  hushed  mood  of  spiritual  sensi- 
tiveness, which  is  the  only  interpreter  of  souls  in 
print,  that  perhaps  it  is  timely  in  Boston  now  to 
recite  a  list  of  illumined,  cheerful,  incisive,  stalwart 
books  which  may  be  useful  to  those  who  lately  have 
entered  a  Christian  life,  and  some  of  which  may  be- 
come not  only  food,  but  muscle.  Let  us  always 
remember  that  mental  and  spiritual  food,  without 
work,  are  not  transformed  into  nerve  and  muscle; 
and  it  is  these  you  want,  and  not  merely  food.  Work 
after  food  makes  strength ;  and  food  without  work 
makes — what  shall  we  say?  A  plethoric,  overfed, 
luxurious,  uneasy  Christianity,  an  object  of  pity  to 

99 


100  ORTHODOXY. 

gods  and  men,  and,  perhaps,  found  in  as  great  quan- 
tity to  the  square  mile  in  Eastern  Massachusetts  as 
anywhere  else  on  the  globe. 

What  you  want,  of  course,  is  first  the  Bible  really 
understood ;  that  is,  acted  out.  How  much  do  you 
know  of  Shakspeare  until  after  you  are  forty  years 
of  age?  Until  a  man  has  surrendered  himself  to 
God,  he  cannot  be  said  to  appreciate  the  Bible  or 
any  great  merely  human  production.  Let  a  poet  like 
Milton,  or  Shakspeare,  or  Dante,  make  a  painting 
of  the  inner  sky  in  man,  and  he  will  put  into  it  light 
and  shade  almost  as  strongly  contrasted  as  the  light 
and  shade  of  Christianity.  If  there  is  not  the  sun 
of  the  Atonement  in  it,  there  will  be  there  the 
chariot  of  that  sun,  —  a  fathomless  desire  for  peace 
with  God  and  with  the  irreversible  record  of  the 
past.  But  how  can  you  understand  great  poetry 
of  the  secular  sort  until  you  have  lived  it,  and 
multitudinous  rifting  experiences  have  opened  your 
heart  ?  Nevertheless,  even  with  a  heart  untutored 
by  fulness  of  life,  it  is  better  for  you  to  read  great 
poetry  than  third-rate  poetry,  —  the  light  fiddling  of 
the  charlatans,  who  sing  the  anthem  of  the  stars  as 
if  it  were  a  dancing-tune,  or  make  a  painting  of  the 
sky  without  the  sun  in  it,  or  moon,  or  light,  or  shade, 
or  much  of  any  thing  else.  It  is  best  for  you,  in 
studying  what  is  greatest  in  the  results  of  human 
imagination,  to  avoid  mercilessly  all  second-rate 
matter,  however  good.  So,  too,  in  feeding  your  devo- 
tional life,  it  is  best  for  you  to  avoid  Bunyan  and 
Jeremy  Taylor,  and  Baxter  and  Martineau  and  Pas- 


THEODOEE  PAEKEK'S   SELF-CONTKADICTIONS.  101 

cal,  and  Bushnell  and  Thomas  a  Kempis  himself,  if 
these  books  shut  out  the  Bible  from  daily  and  almost 
hourly  use.  The  Germans  have  a  proverb,  that  "  the 
better  is  a  great  enemy  of  the  best."  Even  the  rich- 
est of  the  devotional  works  are  a  mischief,  if  they 
hinder  you  from  taking  the  Bible  as  your  supreme 
inspirer  in  life,  as  it  will  undoubtedly  be  your  su- 
preme solace  in  death. 

Do  you  know  a  book  that  you  are  willing  to  put  under 
your  head  for  a  pillow  when  you  lie  dying  ?  Very  well: 
that  is  the  best  volume  for  you  to  study  while  living. 
There  is  but  one  such  book  in  the  world.  For  one, 
I  have  not  made  up  my  mind  to  put  under  my  head, 
when  I  lie  dying,  any  thing  written  by  Voltaire,  or 
Strauss,  or  Parker.  We  are  to  be  scientifically  care- 
ful when  we  choose  a  book  for  a  dying-pillow.  If 
you  can  tell  me  what  you  want  for  a  dying-pillow,  I 
will  tell  you  what  you  want  for  a  pillar  of  fire  in 
life ;  that  is,  the  Bible,  spiritually  and  scientifically 
understood  by  being  transmuted  into  deeds.  Senti- 
ment is  worth  nothing  until  it  becomes  principle,  and 
principle  nothing  until  it  becomes  action. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  publication  entitled  "  Hints  on 
Bible  Marking,"  by  an  English  authoress,  Mrs.  Menzies, 
and  issued  by  the  renowned  firm  of  Samuel  Bagster 
and  Sons  in  London.  Undoubtedly  it  is  known 
by  all  scholars  here ;  and  I  am  not  speaking  to-day,  or 
any  day,  to  gentlemen  in  whose  presence  I  ought  to 
be  dumb.  But  there  are  younger  persons  here  and 
elsewhere  who  may  be  benefited  by  this  sumptuous 
pamphlet,  approved  by  our  American  evangelist,  who, 


102  ORTHODOXY. 

perhaps,  has  not  referred  to  this  best  production  on 
this  topic,  because  his  own  name  is  connected  with  it. 
It  is  delightfully  printed  in  the  best  London  style, 
and  with  illustrations  of  the  method  of  marking  a 
Bible,  which  you  will  probably  find  better  than  any 
you  can  invent.  I  would  not  have  even  this  method 
adopted  by  any  one  to  the  hinderance  of  originality 
in  the  invention  of  your  own  method  of  marking. 
You  ought  to  mark  a  Bible  every  five  years  so  thoroughly, 
that  you  cannot  use  it  any  more.  May  I  whisper  that 
I  have  a  Bible,  marked  when  I  was  about  fourteen  or 
seventeen  years  of  age,  and  had  but  just  united  with 
the  church ;  and  that  to-day  it  is  the  most  unspeak- 
able record  on  which  I  can  put  my  hand  in  my  little 
past?  If,  every  five  years,  you  can  mark  a  Bible 
thoroughly,  and  memorize  what  is  marked,  it  will  be 
your  best  diary.  You  can  do  little  better  in  reading 
than  to  fill  the  margins  of  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures, 
once  every  five  years,  full  of  the  records  of  the  deep- 
est inmost  in  your  souls,  to  be  intelligible  to  your- 
self, and  to  no  one  else.  Shut  the  door  on  that  record. 
Enter  into  your  closet,  and  keep  your  secrets  with 
Almighty  God. 

At  a  trial  in  Salem,  Webster  said  of  the  argu- 
ment of  his  opponent,  "  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  this 
man  neither  alights,  nor  flies  forward:  he  hovers. 
"Why  does  he  not  meet  the  case  ?  "  Our  age  is  full 
of  readers  and  students  who  are  mere  hoverers,  who 
neither  fly  forward,  nor  alight,  and  who  think  the 
highest  philosophical  glory  is  in  never  coming  to  a 
conclusion.  Have  you  not  seen  these  winged,  unrest- 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   103 

ing  spiritual  creatures  ?  Reading  is  of  small  account 
unless  it  is  thought  to  be  of  no  account  in  comparison 
with  that  style  of  action  which  makes  obedience  to 
truth  an  organ  of  spiritual  knowledge. 

Among  devotional  works,  if  you  could  have  but 
six  authors,  which  would  you  take  ? 

1.  Jeremy  Taylor's  "Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dy- 
ing."    There  you  have  a  great  imagination,  a  flam- 
ing heart,  a  wonderful  analytical  power,  undoubted 
soundness  of  thought,  and  tropical  sympathy  with  all 
ranges  of  religious  emotion.     Outside  of  Shakspeare 
and  Milton,  perhaps  there  is  not  a  greater  imagina- 
tion in  English  literature  than  Jeremy  Taylor's.     It  is 
good  to  be  acquainted  with  him,  although  but  a  little ; 
and,  if  you  once  fall  in  love  with  this  single  book  of 
his,  renewed  now  for   several  generations,   all  his 
works  will  become  to  you  as  a  temple  full  of  incense, 
and  you  will  pace  up  and  down  in  it  as  men  walk  up 
and  down  in  the  Cathedral  at  Cologne,  glorious  for 
its  architecture,  glorious  for  its  atmosphere,  glorious 
for  the  music  in  it,  but  more  glorious  than  for  any 
thing  else  for  the  light  of  the   East  that  streams 
through  its  many-colored  windows.     [Applause.] 

2.  Thomas    a    Kempis :    "  Imitation    of    Christ." 
This  is  a  book  of  which  one  cannot  speak  without 
a  hush  of  tone.     A  sweet  aroma  breathes  from  it  as 
from   the  earliest   and  most  modest   of  the   spring 
blossoms.     A  Romish  work,  if  you  please,  but  none 
the  worse  for  that,  so  far  as  its  devotional  side  is 
concerned.    It  is  adopted  everywhere  by  Protestant- 
ism, and  linked,  therefore,  to  all  the  ages,  Romish 


104  OKTHODOXY. 

and   Protestant,  back  to   the   day  when  there  was 
neither  Romanist  nor  Protestant. 

3.  Bunyan,  and  not  only    the  "Pilgrim's    Prog- 
ress," but  the  "  Holy  War."     Take  all  his  devotional 
works,  and  read  the  best  of  them  in  some  adequately 
illustrated  edition,  with  Maculay's  Essay  on  Bunyan 
as  a  preface. 

4.  Pascal :   "  Thoughts  on  Religion." 

But  now,  among  American  writers,  whom  shall  I 
mention,  when  I  can  name  but  two  ? 

5.  Horace  Bushnell's  "  Sermons  for  the  New  Life." 
You  have  heard  me  criticise  portions  of  his  writings ; 
but  what  can  be  better  than  his  discussions  of  this 
and  all   similar  themes?     [Applause.]      Bushnell's 
"  Nature  and  the  Supernatural "  is  a  prose  epic,  some 
strains  in  which  seem  likely  to  be  heard  many  cen- 
turies. 

6.  Huntington's  "  Christian  Believing  and  Living." 
He  knew  Boston:    he  knew  the  mind  of  this   city 
on  two  sides.     His  literary  equipment  was  very  com- 
plete.     In  the  commanding  position  of  preacher  to 
the   great   university  yonder,  he   passed   through  a 
struggle   in   changing   his  views  from  those  which 
he  had  preached  to  those  which  he  now  preaches; 
and   this  book  with  such  an   origin   has   thoughts 
timely  for  all  culture  in  a  similar  state  of  transi- 
tion. 

I  do  not  forget  "  St.  Augustine's  Confessions,"  nor 
the  "  Thoughts  of  Marcus  Aurelius,"  nor  "  Plato." 
"What  works  of  Baxter  shall  I  read?"  said  Bos- 
well  to  Johnson.  "  Read  all  of  them,"  was  the  reply ; 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   105 

"  for  they  are  all  good."  Are  Doddridge  and  Fuller 
not  to  be  named  ?  Who  will  not  refuse  to  part  with 
F.  W.  Robertson,  and  twenty  biographies,  some  of 
which  are  the  best  devotional  works  ?  Shall  I  omit 
Dora  Greenwell,  and  Goulburn,  and  Hare,  and  Mar- 
tineau  ? 

All  of  these  writers  are  to  be  commended;  but 
you  will  be  able  to  master  more  than  about  one 
hundred  books  in  your  short  life.  It  is  best  that 
you  should  not  let  third-rates  crowd  out  first-rates. 
Spend  time  on  Milton,  Carlyle,  Shakspeare,  Mrs. 
Browning,  and  all  great  poems,  of  which  there  are 
not  a  thousand  in  the  world. 

On  the  Deity  of  our  Lord  what  books  deserve  to 
named,  if  we  can  mention  only  six  ? 

1.  Liddon :   "  Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Divinity 
of  our  Lord,"  —  a  very  frequently  attacked  book,  but 
one  which,  on  the  whole,  is  to  be  regarded  as  the 
best  in  English  on  the  subject.     It  is  not  an  exhaust- 
ive volume ;  but  you  will  find  it  very  valuable  if  you 
will  master  its  learned  references.      The   footnotes 
mean  something,  and  you  must  not  skip  them. 

2.  Dorner,  professor  in  the  University  at  Berlin : 
"  History  of  the  Person  of  Christ."     This  is  a  book 
in  four  or  five  volumes,  and  is  to  be  recommended  as, 
perhaps,  the  best  which  has  been  transplanted  out 
of  the  German  language  on  this  topic.     Dorner  and 
Liddon  have  never  been  answered,  and  they  are  as 
fresh  as  the  risen  sun. 

3.  Clarke,  James   Freeman :     "  Orthodoxy."     Of 
course  you  will  read  both  sides. 


106  ORTHODOXY. 

4.  Stuart,  Professor  Moses  :  Miscellanies,  including 
Letters  to  Dr.  Channing.     The  proof-texts  here  are 
the  most  incisive  portion. 

5.  Seeley,  Professor :   "  Ecce  Homo." 

6.  Neander :   "  Life  of  Christ." 

On  the  Christian  evidences  let  me  mention  :  — 

1.  Butler's  "Analogy."     This  is  the  book  Edmund 
Burke  always  recommended  as  unanswerable,  and  it 
is  not  outgrown. 

2.  Paley's  "  Evidences,"  but  always  in  connection 
with  later  works. 

3.  Farrar's  "  Critical   History  of  Free  Thought." 
Bampton  Lectures  at  the  University  of  Oxford,  1-862. 
The  references  in   that  work  are   the  best  I  have 
seen. 

4.  Fisher's  "  Essays  on  the  Supernatural  Origin  of 
Christianity." 

5.  Christlieb :  "  Modern  Doubt,"  1864. 

6.  "Aids  to  Faith,"  by  distinguished  writers  of  the 
Church  of  England,  in  reply  to  Essays  and  Reviews. 

7.  Whately :  "  Peculiarities  of  the  Christian  Reli- 
gion ; "  his  proof  that  "  Napoleon  "  never  existed  if 
our  Lord  never  did ;  and,  lastly,  his  "  Christian  Evi- 
dences." 

7.  Home's  "  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament," 
new  edition. 

You  say  I  am  partisan ;  and  so  I  take  up  one  of  the 
best  of  the  popular  guides,  "  The  Best  Reading ; "  and 
I  find  this  statement  from  a  man  who  is  no  theologian 
and  no  partisan :  — 

"  To  keep  your  balance  against  the  often  denounced  innu- 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   107 

endoes  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  don't  quiddle  with  the  goody  little  notes 
to  Gibbon,  by  Milman  and  others,  but  having  let  Gibbon  poison 
you  as  much  as  he  can,  — he  won't  hurt  you  if  you  have  much 
intellect  of  your  own, —  turn  away,  and  master  at  once  the  right 
side  of  the  main  question  of  Christ  in  history,  by  a  thorough 
study  and  mental  appropriation  of  Home's  '  Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures.'  I  mean  not  the  obsolete  old 
edition,  still  obstinately  and  improperly  kept  in  the  American 
market  to  the  exclusion  of  the  proper  one,  but  the  last  edition, 
with  Home's  own  latest  revisions,  and  with  the  addition,  by 
first-class  evangelical  English  scholars,  of  all  the  recent  learning 
on  the  subject.  No  man  of  sound  mind,  having  mastered  Home, 
will  ever  be  materially  troubled  by  such  little  snips  and  sneers 
as  Gibbon's,  or  by  any  other  attempt  to  destroy  the  historical 
argument  for  the  substantial  truth  of  the  Bible."  [Applause.] 

9.  Wescott's  "Introduction  to  the  Study  of    the 
Gospels." 

10.  Miiller,  Julius :  "  The  Doctrine  of  Sin." 

11.  Hagenbach :  "  The  Decline  of  German  Ration- 
alism."    This  book   Professor  Tholuck  told    me  re- 
peatedly he  put  first  into  the  hands  of  any  student 
who  came   to    Germany,  and  wished   to   know  the 
history  of  German  rationalism. 

12.  Dorner:  "  The  History  of  Protestant  Theology." 
There  are  many  little  jeers  and  quips  which  are 

admirably  answered  by  Haley,  a  late  scholarly  writer, 
on  the  "Alleged  Discrepancies  of  the  Bible," —  a  book 
which  every  one  who  frequents  a  (Paine)  full  hall 
ought  to  have. 

.  Read  sometimes  on  your  knees.  Let  us  have  no 
debate  merely  for  the  sake  of  debate.  Let  us  have 
manly  transmutation  of  our  conviction  into  action ; 
and  whenever  we  are  loyal  to  the  truth  we  know  we 


108  ORTHODOXY. 

shall  have  more,  and  more,  and  more,  until  our  east 
window  breaks,  and  the  east  window  of  the  Unseen 
Holy  receives  us- into  its  perfect  day.  [Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

Dean  Stanley  of  Westminster  Abbey,  in  that 
already  famous  address  of  his,  delivered  but  a  few 
days  ago  at  the  University  of  St.  Andrew's  in  Scot- 
land, speaks  of  Thomas  Carlyle  as  the  most  famous 
of  living  Scotchmen,  "who,  though  winding  up  the 
threads  of  his  long  and  honorable  life  at  Chelsea,  has 
never  disdained  the  traditions  of  the  Scottish  church 
and  nation,  still  warms  at  the  recollection  of  his  na- 
tive Annandale,  and  still  is  fired  with  poetic  ardor 
when  he  speaks  of  the  glories  of  St.  Andrew's " 
(London  Times,  March  17,  1877).  Has  Boston  any 
literary  name  on  the  whole  superior  to  that  of  Thomas 
Carlyle  ?  Did  Transcendentalism  thirty  years  ago  in 
this  city,  does  American  literature  in  its  yet  unended 
April,  owe  any  thing  to  the  author  of  "  Sartor  Resar- 
tus  "  and  "  The  French  Revolution  "  ?  We  have  in 
this  Scottish  author  perhaps  the  greatest  imagination 
Europe  has  seen  since  Richter,  and,  if  the  German 
be  omitted,  the  greatest  since  Milton.  A  will  free  as 
ever  was  Boreas  horsed  on  the  North  Wind,  and  yet 
a  man  who,  Dean  Stanley  says,  has  never  broken 
with  the  traditions  of  the  Scottish  church !  That 
portion  of  the  world  which  has  been  too  busy  or  tot) 
obtuse  to  read  what  is  between  the  lines  in  Carlyle's 
writings  has  wished  for  information  as  to  Carlyle's 
religion.  This  information  is  given  by  the  lord 
rector  of  St.  Andrew's  University. 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   109 

It  is  pointedly  understood  by  scholars  that  Dean 
Stanley  is  not  a  bigot ;  but  he  is  a  representative  of 
Westminster  Abbey,  and  as  such  he  says  in  this 
same  address,  "  I  am  not  here  to  criticise  or  dispar- 
age the  venerable  document,  which,  born  under  my 
own  roof  at  Westminster,  alone  of  all  such  confes- 
sions for  a  short  time  represented  the  whole  national 
faith  of  Great  Britain.  If  the  Westminster  Cate- 
chism has  some  defects  or  exaggerations  from  which 
our  own  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  free,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  has  soared  to  higher  heights,  and  struck 
down  to  deeper  depths."  When  New  England  was 
in  the  gristle,  she  was  fed  on  what?  On  the  West- 
minster Catechism,  which,  in  spite  of  its  defects, 
soared,  according  to  Dean  Stanley,  to  heights  farther 
aloft,  and  struck  down  to  depths  nearer  the  centre 
of  thought,  than  had  been  reached  by  any  other  En- 
glish symbol  of  religious  faith. 

Theodore  Parker  is  perpetually  assailing  what  he 
calls  the  popular  theology ;  and  it  is  to  be  admitted, 
that  if,  by  this  phrase,  you  mean  the  misconceptions 
of  the  half-educated,  fault  enough  can  be  found 
effectively  with  New  England.  But  what  did  Parker 
mean  by  the  popular  theology  ?  Although  a  man  of 
courage,  he  was  usually  so  prudent  as  not  to  give 
references  when  he  attacked  this  giant.  "I  have 
been  careful,"  he  often  said,  "  not  to  cite  authorities, 
lest  individual  churches  or  writers  should  be  deemed 
responsible  for  the  sin  of  the  mass"  {Discourse  on 
Religion,  p.  429).  In  the  plentiful  absence  of  schol- 
arly references,  there  is  a  vagueness  in  Parker's 


110  ORTHODOXY. 

charges  against  the  popular  theology,  that  is  not  at 
all  scientific.  Surely,  if  we  are  to  have  a  definition 
of  the  popular  theology,  we  cannot  with  fairness  go 
lower  down  than  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  If  we  are 
to  have  any  creed  brought  forward  for  scientific  de- 
bate, we  must  have  something  to  represent  it  at  least 
as  definite  and  authoritative  as  that  set  of  symbols 
which  Great  Britain  and  her  empire  throughout  the 
world,  and  the  renowned  Church  which  adopts  those 
articles,  regard  as  a  standard  summary  of  faith.  Dean 
Stanley  says  the  Westminster  Catechism  is,  in  some 
respects,  better  than  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  But 
I  will  not  use  the  catechism  to-day :  I  will  take  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  in  spite  of  this  affirmation  that 
they  do  not  dive  as  deep,  nor  soar  as  high,  as  the 
Scottish  and  New-England  symbol.  I  will  take  the 
overt  services  which  have  grown  out  of,  and  express 
the  faith  of,  these  articles ;  I  will  employ  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  in  the  pages  most  used  by 
the  people,  as  the  fittest  representation  of  popular 
theology. 

Let  us  enter  Westminster  Abbey ;  let  us  examine 
the  popular  theology  there ;  and  while  the  anthems 
roll,  while  the  incense  of  the  sublime  service  rises 
above  the  tombs  of  poets  and  martyrs  and  kings, 
and  orators  and  statesmen,  let  us  listen  to  the  con- 
trasted voices  of  the  worshipping  assemblies  as  repre- 
senting popular  theology,  and  of  a  Boston  critic  as 
representing  scientific  attack  on  that  theology.  On 
the  one  hand,  Carlyle  and  Stanley  intone  majestic 
words,  which  have  the  assent,  in  what  I  shall  cite,  of 


THEODOEE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   Ill 

all  the  evangelical  communions  of  the  world.  On  the 
other  hand,  let  Theodore  Parker  utter  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey  what  he  uttered  in  Boston.  Gather  up 
now  all  your  historic  senses,  and  forget  not  the 
vision  of  martyrs  in  the  air  as  you  listen  ;•  for  perhaps 
the  contrasts  and  echoes  here  may  be  more  than 
slightly  suggestive.  You  are  standing  on  the  hal- 
lowed floor  which  covers  the  irradiated  tomb  of  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  and  this  is  what  you  hear :  — 

1.  Carlyle  and  Stanley.  —  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord   God  of 
Sabaoth ; 

Heaven  and  Earth  are  full  of  the  Majesty  of  thy  Glory. 

The  glorious  company  of  the  Apostles  praise  thee. 

The  goodly  fellowship  of  the  Prophets  praise  thee. 

The  noble  army  of  Martyrs  praise  thee. 

The  holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world  doth  acknowledge 
thee; 

The  Father,  of  an  Infinite  Majesty; 

Thine  adorable,  true,  and  only  Son; 

Also  the  Holy  Ghost  and  Comforter. 

Theodore  Parker.  —  The  popular  theology  regards  God  as 
eminently  malignant  (PARKER,  Sermons  on  Theism,  p.  101). 
Its  God  is  diabolical  (Discourse  on  Religion,  p.  427). 

2.  Carlyle  and  Stanley.  —  From  all  blindness  of  heart ;  from 
pride,  vain-glory,  and  hypocrisy;  from  envy,  hatred,  and  malice, 
and  all  uncharitableness,  good  Lord,  deliver  us. 

Parker.  —  This  system  can  justify  any  thing  out  of  the 
Bible.  .  .  .It  makes  men  do  nothing  from  the  love  of  what  is 
good.  Its  divine  life  is  but  a  good  bargain  (Discourse  on 
Religion,  pp.  426,  428).  All  the  popular  vices  are  sure  to 
have  the  churches  on  their  side  (Theism,  p.  162).  The  Ameri- 
can churches  launch  their  feeble  thunders  in  defence  of  every 
popular  wickedness  (Ibid.,  p.  141). 

3.  Carlyle   and   Stanley.  —  O   God,  the   King  of   glory,  we 


112  OKTHODOXY. 

beseech  thee  leave  us  not  comfortless,  but  send  to  us  thy  Holy 
Ghost  to  comfort  us ;  and  in  thee  may  we  continually  dwell,  one 
God,  world  without  end. 

Parker.  —  The  popular  theology  does  not  tell  of  God  now, 
near  at  hand  (Discourse  on  Religion,  p.  426). 

4.  Carlyle  and  Stanley. — We  beseech  thee  to  hear  us,  good 
Lord :  that  it  may  please  thee  to  give  to  all  thy  people  increase 
of  grace  to  hear  meekly  thy  Word,  and  to  receive  it  with  pure 
affection,  and  to  bring  forth  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.     Endue 
us  with  the  grace  of  thy  Holy  Spirit  to  amend  our  lives. 

Parker.  —  The  Holy  Ghost  of  theology  has  nothing  to  do 
with  schemes  for  making  the  world  better  (Theism,  p.  117). 

The  Holy  Ghost  is  not  represented  as  loving  wicked  men; 
and  no  one  of  the  three  persons  of  the  Godhead  has  any  love  for 
the  soul  of  the  lost  (Ibid.,  p.  102). 

5.  Carlyle  and  Stanley. — O  ye  Sun  and  Moon,  O  ye  Stars 
of  Heaven,  bless  ye  the  Lord;   praise  him  and  magnify  him 
forever. 

Parker.  —  The  universe  is  not  thought  to  be  the  word  of  God 
at  all  (Theism,  p.  110). 

6.  Carlyle  and   Stanley.  —  O  ye    Showers  and    Dew,  O  ye 
Winds  of  God,  O  ye  Fire  and  Heat,  O  ye  Winter  and  Summer, 
O  ye  Dews  and  Frosts,  O  ye  Frost  and  Cold,  O  ye  Ice  and 
Snow,  bless  ye  the  Lord;   praise  him  and  magnify  him  for- 
ever. 

Parker.  —  It  is  tacitly  taken  for  granted  in  the  popular 
theology  that  God  is  sometimes  taken  by  surprise,  and  has  to 
mend  his  work. 

7.  Carlyle  and  Stanley.  — O  ye  Nights  and  Days,  O  ye  Light 
and  Darkness,  O  ye  Lightnings  and  Clouds,  O  ye  Mountains  and 
Hills,  O  all  ye  green  Things  upon  the  Earth,  O  ye  Seas  and 
Floods,  bless  ye  the  Lord ;  praise  him,  and  magnify  him  for- 
ever. 

Parker.  —  Pantheism  and  the  popular  theology  agree  in  the 
negation  of  the  Infinite,  and  the  affirmation  of  a  variable  God 
(Theism,  p.  302). 

8.  Carlyle  and  Stanley.  —  O  God,  without  whom  nothing  is 


THEODORE   PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   113 

strong,  nothing  is  holy,  thou  being  our  Ruler  and  Guide,  may 
we  so  pass  through  things  temporal  that  we  finally  lose  not  the 
things  eternal.  .  .  .  From  all  evil  and  mischief  and  sin,  good 
Lord,  deliver  us. 

Parker.  —  Piety  and  morality,  natural  religion,  is  no  condition 
of  salvation  :  good  works  are  bad  things  for  that  (Theism,  p.  115). 
Those  that  are  saved  are  not  saved  by  their  character.  Virtue 
has  no  virtue  to  save  your  soul  (Ibid.,  p.  114). 

9.  Carlyle  and  Stanley.  —  We  ought  at  all  times  humbly  to 
acknowledge  our  sins  before  God.     We  have  done  the  things  we 
ought  not  to  have  done.     There  is  no  health  in  us. 

Parker.  —  According  to  the  popular  theology,  sin  does  not 
consist  in  sinning,  but  in  being  born  of  Adam  after  the  fall 
(Theism,  p.  107).  To  take  a  step  toward  heaven,  man  must 
deny  his  nature.  He  is  born  totally  depraved  (Discourse  on 
Religion,  p.  425).  You  are  born  of  the  first  sinner,  and  got  as 
much  hurt  by  the  fall  as  he  (Theism,  p.  111). 

10.  Carlyle  and  Stanley.  — Fulfil  now,  O   Lord,  the  desires 
and  petitions  of  thy  servants,  as  may  be  most  expedient  for 
them,  granting  us  in  this  world  knowledge  of  thy  truth,  and  in 
the  world  to  come  life  everlasting. 

Parker. — Down  with  reason,  cries  the  popular  theology; 
down  with  human  nature  (Theism,  p.  110). 

Enough.  If  Westminster  Abbey  listens  longer  to 
this  serene  anthem  and  to  these  dissonant  accusa- 
tions, the  dead  here  will  rise.  Pardon  me,  gentle- 
men; but  Westminster  Abbey  is  the  world  in  our 
century.  The  names  and  voices  contrasted  here  I 
use  only  as  symbols  of  the  great  classes  they  repre- 
sent in  the  conflicts  of  thought  in  the  ages.  Do  the 
.accusations  need  any  other  answers  in  the  Abbey 
than  those  of  the  historic  worship  and  the  associations 
of  the  place  ?  None  at  all.  Still  less  do  these  accu- 
sations need  answer  in  the  historic  temple  of  the 
world  and  the  ages. 


114  ORTHODOXY. 

Indirectly  I  contrast  here  Theodore  Parker's  father 
•with  Theodore  Parker's  mother.  You  have  accused 
me  of  forgetting  the  better  traits  in  Parker.  It  was 
his  mother  who  was  singing  this  anthem,  and  in 
Parker  there  were  moods  in  which  he  sang  it.  But 
when  he  uttered  these  accusations,  which  are  cari- 
catures needing  no  answer,  the  spirit  of  the  drum- 
major  of  Lexington  stood  up  under  his  waistcoat,  and 
he  was  addressing  opponents.  In  much  of  Parker's 
severest  speech  he  is  not  thinking,  he  is  fretting  and 
chafing.  These  accusations  are  the  language  of  in- 
tellectual irritation.  You  say  I  have  contrasted  Dean 
Stanley  and  Carlyle  with  Parker,  and  London  with 
Boston.  So  I  did ;  but  I  contrasted  them  in  order 
that  I  might  say  emphatically  at  the  last,  that  the 
mother  of  Theodore  Parker  would  have  sung  that 
anthem  with  Carlyle  and  with  Stanley ;  but  the  father 
in  Theodore  Parker,  standing  up  to  do  a  giant's  work 
against  slavery,  had  fallen  into  irritation  of  such  a 
kind,  that  these  ghastly  statements  of  his  undoubtedly 
seemed  to  him  true,  although  you  and  I  know  that 
they  are  so  false  as  to  need  no  reply.  [Applause.] 

Total  depravity,  what  is  it?  That  clock  yonder 
is  made  on  a  plan :  so  is  my  soul.  The  clock  may 
be  out  of  order :  so  may  my  soul.  When  that  clock 
is  in  order,  it  keeps  tune  :  when  my  soul  is  in  order, 
it  obeys  conscience.  If  the  clock  is  so  out  of  order 
as  not  to  keep  time,  it  is  good  for  nothing  as  a  clock : 
if  my  soul  is  so  out  of  order  as  not  to  obey  con- 
science, if  I  answer  "  I  will  not,"  when  the  Divine 
Voice  says  "  I  ought,"  I  am  not  keeping  time.  Every 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   115 

choice  is  wrong  when  I  reply  by  the  negative  to  the 
infinite  affirmative ;  and  as  the  moral  character  of  all 
action  comes  from  choice,  and  as  my  choice  is  wrong, 
I  violate  the  plan  of  my  being:  I  no  longer  keep 
time :  I  am  good  for  nothing  as  a  clock.  But  when 
I  say  that  clock  will  not  keep  time,  do  I  mean  to  say 
that  the  wheels  in  it  cannot  be  put  in  order  ?  No. 
Perhaps  the  wheels  are  of  gold  and  silver.  Disar- 
rangedness  in  the  clock  implies  its  arrangeability. 
Disarrangedness  in  the  soul  implies  its  arrangeability. 
That  clock  will  not  keep  time,  however,  and  so  I 
say  it  is  totally  depraved  as  a  clock.  Does  that 
mean  that  the  wheels  are  all  slime,  and  the  face  of 
it  a  concrete  mass  of  leprosy,  or  that  there,  is  noth- 
ing useful  in  it  ?  Let  us  be  clear  on  this  topic  once 
for  all ;  for  Boston  loves  clear  thought,  and  supposes 
that  there  can  be  none  on  this  subject.  Make  a 
distinction  between  total  depravity  and  total  corrup- 
tion. That  is  a  distinction  as  old  as  St.  Augustine, 
and  ought  to  be  tolerably  well  understood  here, 
where  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity  has  so  long 
been  attacked  mercilessly.  If  that  clock  were  a  con- 
crete mass  of  unspeakable  slime,  I  should  say  it  is 
totally  corrupt :  when  it  is  so  out  of  order  that  it 
will  not  keep  time,  I  s<r<y  it  is  totally  depraved.  If 
there  were  nothing  in  a  man  capable  of  arrangement ; 
if,  when  the  soul  is  out  of  order,  it  could  not,  by  fol- 
lowing conscience  and  by  God's  good  grace,  be  put 
again  into  order,  —  I  should  say  it  is  totally  corrupt. 
But  the  wheels  yonder  may  be  of  pearl,  the  pivots 
may  be  of  diamonds,  and  yet  the  clock  not  keep  time 


116  ORTHODOXY. 

at  all.  It  is  not  totally  corrupt :  it  is  totally  depraved. 
So  the  human  faculties  may  be  wheels  of  far-flashing 
silver  and  gold  and  pearl:  the  pivots  may  roll  on 
diamonds,  and  yet  the  man  not  keep  time.  He  says 
"  I  will  not "  when  the  still  small  voice  says  "  I 
ought ;  "  and  you  know  it  is  a  deliverance  of  self- 
evident  truth,  that,  when  a  man  says  this,  he  has  a 
sense  of  ill-desert,  and  feels  that  the  nature  of  things 
is  against  him.  You  cannot  convince  him  that  he  is 
right  with  the  universe.  He  is  out  of  order  with  the 
universe  whenever  he  does  not  keep  time  to  the 
divine  "I  ought."  But  is  that  man  incapable  of 
being  arranged  ?  Not  at  all.  Total  depravity  means 
the  moral  disarrangedness  of  man  and  the  evil  char- 
acter of  his  choices :  it  implies  man's  arrangeability. 
It  does  not  mean  total  corruption:  that  has  no 
arrangeability.  [Applause.] 

Now,  as  to  inherited  vice  and  original  sin,  what 
amazing  superficiality  we  have  heard  on  that  theme  ! 
You  cut  through  knot  after  knot  on  this  topic,  if  you 
will  take  a  strong  phrase  of  our  American  evangelist, 
and  expand  it  into  scientific  shape.  Indeed,  it  needs 
very  little  expanding.  It  was  meant  to  be  seen  at  a 
distance,  as  the  figures  of  the  prophets  in  the  dome 
of  St.  Peter's  are  meant  to  be  looked  on  at  a  dis- 
tance. The  pen  of  Isaiah  in  that  dome  is  seven  feet 
long ;  and  his  eyes,  when  you  are  close  upon  them, 
are  really  only  bits  of  stone,  rather  rough  mosaic: 
but,  looked  on  as  they  were  meant  to  be,  he  is  the 
sublime  prophet,  and  awes  you  as  he  gazes  down 
from  the  height.  Just  so,  many  of  our  American 


THEODORE  PARKER'S  SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   117 

evangelist's  expressions,  when  taken  by  piecemeal, 
and  looked  on  with  the  eye  of  a  fly  critic,  are  under- 
stood about  as  well  as  the  buzzing  insect  in  that 
dome  of  St.  Peter's  understands  the  prophet  Isaiah. 
[Applause.]  They  were  meant  to  be  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance ;  and  this  phrase  I  for  one  am  willing  to  adopt, 
if  you  will  understand  it :  "  Man  is  born  with  his 
back  toward  God."  That  is  original  sin.  [Ap- 
plause.] "Will  your  Shakspeare  bear  you  out  in  your 
assertion  that  a  man  is  born  with  his  face  toward  God, 
and  ready  to  say  "  I  will "  when  the  Divine  Voice 
says  "I  ought"?  Will  your  Milton  and  Richter, 
and  your  Carlyle,  carry  you  through,  if  you  under- 
take to  maintain  that  man  is  born  with  his  face 
toward  God? 

Accredited  New-England  theology  does  not  assert 
that  inherited  evil  disposition  is  sin ;  for  it  teaches 
always  that  responsibility  cannot  exist  without  free- 
dom of  the  will,  and  that  sin  consists  in  evil  choice. 
Sin  is  sinning,  as  Theodore  Parker  says  that  New 
England  affirms  it  is  not.  There  have  been  schools 
of  theology  using  the  word  "  sin "  in  a  peculiar 
sense ;  but,  if  you  will  notice  how  they  define  the 
word,  they  mean  at  the  last  analysis  only  what  our 
evangelist  means  when  he  says  that  a  man  is  born 
with  his  face  turned  away  from  that  Being  who  says 
"  I  ought,"  and  to  whom  we  say  "  I  will  not."  But 
this  moral  condition  is  not  total  corruption :  it  is  dis- 
arrangedness,  it  is  not  unarrangeability.  Man  is 
noble :  the  wheels  in  him  are  of  gold,  of  silver,  and 
of  pearl,  of  an  unmeasured  preciousness.  They  are 


118  ORTHODOXY. 

so  disarranged,  however,  as  not  to  keep  time ;  and 
that  condition  we  call  total  depravity.  If  they  were 
concrete  slime,  as  they  are  not,  we  should  call  that 
condition  total  corruption.  But  for  want  of  making 
that  simple  distinction,  —  one  of  the  commonplaces 
of  religious  science,  so  familiar  that  I  am  almost 
ashamed  to  take  up  time  with  it  here,  even  when 
we  stand  face  to  face  with  Theodore  Parker's  rough 
caricatures,  —  men  fall  into  the  most  ghastly  miscon- 
ceptions of  religious  truth  at  this  point,  as  if  it  were 
an  impeachment  of  God's  own  work,  or  as  if  there 
were  in  it  the  spirit  of  some  ghoulish  depredator  at 
the  tomb  of  all  that  is  noble  in  man. 

Your  Shakspeare  asserts  total  depravity  as  much 
as  New-England  theology,  and  I  think  rather  more. 
There  is  not  on  the  globe  a  deep  writer  of  the  merely 
secular  sort,  who  does  not  affirm  that  man  is  inclined 
at  birth,  by  hereditary  descent,  to  say  "  I  will  not " 
when  the  Divine  Voice  says  "  I  ought."  All  ethical 
science  asserts,  that  until  you  come  into  a  predomi- 
nant mood,  in  which  you  love  what  the  Divine  Voice 
that  says  "  I  ought "  commands,  you  do  not  keep 
time ;  you  are  worth  nothing  as  a  clock.  Neverthe- 
less you  can  be  arranged  so  as  to  follow  the  unchan- 
ging plan  of  your  soul.  That  clock  out  of  order 
needs  a  hand  from  outside  of  it  to  put  it  in  order. 
Man  can  obey  his  conscience ;  I  believe  man  can  do 
all  that  God  requires  of  him :  nevertheless,  when  a 
man  is  put  in  order,  after  having  been  so  disarranged 
as  not  to  keep  time,  he  incontrovertibly  has  to  thank 
the  original  plan  of  the  mechanism,  and  he  did  not 


THEODORE  PARKER'S  SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   119 

invent  that.  He  has  to  thank  Divine  Providence  for 
bringing  truth  to  bear  upon  him  in  such  a  way  as  to 
seize  his  reason  and  emotion,  and  woo  him  at  last 
freely  to  do  what  he  ought.  While  God  rules  in  him 
by  the  plan  of  the  clock,  man  also,  by  his  own  free 
choice,  acts  within  himself:  and,  since  very  evidently 
both  powers  are  conjoined  in  arranging  the  clock,  we 
do  well  to  work  out  our  own  orderliness  with  fear 
and  trembling.  [Applause.] 

Theodore  Parker's  chief  error  was  a  confusion  of 
popular  and  scholarly  theology.  This  series  of  cari 
catures  illustrates  that  confusion,  and  so  does  a  series 
of  self-contradictions  which  must  now  be  outlined. 

The  deepest  desire  of  man  is  for  final  satisfaction, 
intellectual  and  moral,  concerning  religious  truth  and 
his  personal  relations  to  it.  Tossed  about,  however 
wearily,  and  without  a  place  where  to  lay  the  head, 
no  past  age  has  made,  and  no  future  age  will  make, 
a  pillow  of  self-contradiction.  There  never  will  come 
a  time  when  transcendentalism  will  meet  with  suc- 
cessful opposition  to  its  assertion  that  a  thing  cannot 
be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
sense.  If  there  is  a  self-evident  truth,  that  is  one, 
transcending,  if  you  please,  not  only  the  experience 
of  the  individual,  but  also  that  of  the  race.  Only 
very  slowly  can  I  get  forward  here  with  the  immense 
theme  of  the  intuitional  philosophy ;  but  I  am  not 
forgetting  that  some  of  you  think  that  these  royal 
intuitive  beliefs  in  self-evident  truths  are  the  result 
of  inherited  experience  of  both  the  individual  and 
the  race.  I  know  that  in  Orion  a  thing  cannot  be 


120  ORTHODOXY. 

and  not  be  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  sense, 
andth  at  the  same  is  true  in  the  North  Star.  But 
I  never  had  any  experience  in  the  North  Star ;  the 
race  never  had  any  experience  in  Orion.  Our  con- 
viction, however,  is  perfect  that  the  whole  must  be 
greater  than  a  part  in  the  Pleiades,  or  in  the  Swan, 
or  where  Sagittarius  draws  his  bow  in  the  south.  We 
have  never  flown  through  the  zenith  with  the  Swan ; 
mankind  never  drew  bow  with  Sagittarius  in  the 
southern  heavens.  Axiomatic  certainties  have  a 
range  immeasurably  transcending  all  possible  experi- 
ence of  the  individual  or  of  the  race.  They  are  cer- 
tainties everywhere  and  always.  Therefore,  accord- 
ing to  all  just  philosophy,  self-contradiction  is  a  com- 
petent condemnation  of  any  proposition,  not  only  for 
this  world,  but  for  all  worlds ;  not  only  for  time,  but 
for  eternity. 

In  Theodore  Parker's  collected  writings,  self-con- 
tradictions are  far  more  easily  noticed  than  in  any 
of  his  volumes  taken  singly.  It  is  significant  that 
there  never  has  been  an  American  edition  of  his 
works ;  that  is,  of  his  collected  writings.  Of  course 
individual  volumes  of  his  have  been  several  times 
republished ;  but  there  is  in  this  country  no  edition 
of  his  collected  works.  There  is  such  an  edition  in 
England ;  but  when  I  asked  one  of  his  publishers 
here,  if  the  English  edition  had  prevented  the  appear- 
ance of  the  collected  works  in  this  country,  he 
he  replied,  "  "Not  at  all.  The  books  will  not  sell." 

What  are  some  of  the  more  important  self-contra- 
dictions in  Theodore  Parker's  productions  taken  as  a 
whole  ? 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   121 

There  is  in  Parker's  scheme  of  thought  a  multi- 
plex self-contradiction  as  to  the  intuitions  of  con- 
science. 

1.  The  intuitions  of  conscience  declare  man's  ill- 
desert  when  he  says  "  I  will  not "  to  the  Divine  "  I 
ought." 

2.  The  ill-desert  of  man  is  therefore,  a  self-evident 
fact. 

3.  The  intuitions  were  Parker's  authority. 

4.  The  life  and  correspondence  and  public  words 
of  Theodore  Parker  yield  almost  no  proof  that  he 
was  accustomed  to  confess  sin  to  the  Supreme  Being. 
The  nearest  he  comes  to  confession  is  in  a  prayer 
offered  in  Music  Hall  the  day  after  the  unveiling  of 
Beethoven's  statue  :  "  May  we  chastise  ourselves  for 
every  mean  and  wicked  thing  "  (WEISS,  Life,  vol.  i. 
p.  411). 

5.  To  James  Freeman  Clarke  he  writes  from  his 
dying-chamber  that  there  is  in  man  no  condition  of 
enmity  against  God  (Life,  vol.  i.  p.  151).     "  No  sin," 
he  said,  '•  can  make  an  indelible  mark  on  what  I  call 
the  soul "  (Ibid.,  p.  149). 

6.  Self-evident  truth  does,  and  Theodore  Parker 
did  not,  carefully  distinguish  human  infirmity  from 
human  iniquity.     He  held,  that,  at  the  last  analysis, 
sin  is  a  defect  of  judgment,  or  a  necessary  incident  in 
our  moral  development,  and  that  therefore  "  every  fall 
is  a  fall  upward."     That  phrase,  I  find,  has  been  often 
cited  by  scholars  as  typical  of  Parker's  thought.     It 
is  a  clause  out  of  a  whole  page  to  which  I  printed  a 
reference  the  other  day  (Sermons  on  Theism,  p.  408) ; 


1 22  ORTHODOXY. 

and,  when  I  put  a  reference  into  a  published  report, 
I  mean,  of  course,  to  invite  all  gentlemen  to  look 
at  the  original  (see  also  pp.  417,  299,  of  the  same 
book).  When  a  man  painstakingly  gives  a  refer- 
ence, he  must  be  accused  of  pedantry,  if  he  has  not 
a  desire  to  have  people  make  use  of  the  reference. 
I  cannot  say  every  thing  here  in  an  hour ;  but  I 
give  the  references  to  bear  myself  out ;  and  it  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  reading  of  any  man's  argument 
to  examine  the  authorities  to  which  he  refers.  There 
is  in  Parker  nothing  more  fundamental  than  the 
doctrine  implied  by  assertions  like  these :  "  To  the 
wickedest,  life  is  no  absolute  failure ;  "  "  Optimism 
is  the  piety  of  science  ;  "  "  Sin  is  the  provocation  to 
virtue"  (FROTHINGHAM,  Life,  p.  353).  "  Every  fall 
is  a  fall  upward ; "  "  Sure  of  my  immortality  and 
sure  of  God,  I  fear  nothing."  Expressions  like  these 
are  scattered  all  through  his  writings;  and  these  are 
perfectly  consistent  with  the  theory  which  he  held, 
that,  by  many  a  long  and  winding  slope,  Iscariot 
comes  out  right  at  last,  and  that  it  is  safe  to  die  a 
kidnapper  or  a  murderer.  (See  last  page  of  Sermons 
on  Theism.') 

There  were  shrewd  men  fleeced  in  Boston  the 
other  day  by  a  swindler  who  fled  to  Europe.  New 
York  was  fleeced  lately  by  a  conscienceless  cormo- 
rant, who  opened  his  beak  wide  enough  to  swallow 
the  Hudson,  and  was  afterward  found  back  of  the 
Palisades  and  at  Vigo.  At  Meudon,  in  the  French 
Revolution,  gloves  were  made  of  human  skins. 
What,  now,  if  you  were  to  say  to  the  fleeced  tax- 


THEODORE  PARKER'S  SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   123 

payers,  and  to  the  relatives  of  the  flayed  Frenchmen, 
Why,  have  you  not  heard  that  sin  is  a  necessary 
step  in  the  development  of  virtue?  Do  you  not 
know  that  liberal  thought  asserts  that  every  fall  is  a 
fall  upward?  Do  you  not  understand  that  these 
acts  of  which  you  complain  are  merely  the  efforts  of 
the  human  soul  to  get  possession  of  its  faculties? 
The  Winslows  and  the  Tweeds  will  come  out  right. 
God  cares  as  much  for  them  as  he  does  for  the  Law- 
rences and  Peabodys :  if  he  does  not,  he  is  a  malig- 
nant being.  By  many  a  long  and  winding  slope 
every  thief  and  leper  and  perjurer  and  murderer  will 
come  up  at  last  to  a  height  as  lofty  as  he  could  have 
reached  if  he  had  gone  up  without  sin,  lago  falls ; 
but  he  falls  upward.  He  is  getting  possession  of  his 
faculties. 

We  understand  moral  truth  best  in  a  common-place 
example.  Socrates  preferred  facts  from  the  street  to 
illustrate  the  curve  of  the  moral  law.  On  the  gray 
mall  on  Boston  Common  yonder,  under  the  elms 
beneath  which  Adams  and  Washington  walked  with 
Lafayette,  you  may  see  a  seller  of  candies,  an  aged 
woman,  in  the  biting  wind,  in  the  tatters  of  her 
poverty  and  in  the  trembling  of  her  unsupported, 
declining  strength.  (See  Bib.  Sac.,  vol.  26,  p.  296.) 
With  gladness  she  shows  you  a  large  bill,  and  says, 
"  A  very  finely-dressed  gentleman,  with  great  kind- 
ness to  me,  took  more  of  my  stock  than  I  have  sold 
in  a  week  before.  He  took,  indeed,  all  I  had ;  and, 
when  I  could  not  change  his  bill,  he  took  my  little 
collection  of  coppers,  and  filled  his  pocket  with  them, 


124  ORTHODOXY. 

and  gave  me  this  large  bill.  Am  I  not  blessed 
to-day  ?  "  —  "  Madam,  that  is  a  counterfeit  bill."  — 
"What,  what!  The  wretch!"  —  "Yes.  But,  madam, 
have  you  not  heard  that  the  great  Theodore  Parker 
says  that  every  fall  is  a  fall  upward?  Philosophy 
teaches  that  all  evil  is  evanescent.  By  many  a  long 
and  winding  slope  every  man  shall  attain  at  last 
supreme  felicity.  This  man  has  perhaps  heard,  as 
you  have  not,  that  sin  is  needful  to  our  development. 
He  is  getting  command  of  his  faculties."  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Will  you  conduct  law  and  business  and  politics  on 
the  principles  of  a  lax,  unscientific,  lawless  liberal- 
ism? Not  while  men  are  men.  Do  not  ask  me, 
then,  to  adopt  fundamental  principles  in  religious 
theory  and  practice  which  you  will  not  adopt  in  any 
secular  theory  or  practice.  The  scientific  method 
asserts  the  unity  and  the  universality  of  law.  Dis- 
sonances with  the  nature  of  things  are  the  mothers 
of  whirlwinds. 

Next  I  find  in  Theodore  Parker  a  self-contradiction 
concerning  the  penalties  of  sin. 

,In  his  early  manhood  he  said,  "  Punishment  may 
be  eternal "  ( WEISS,  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  66).  And  all 
through  his  life  he  held  the  intuitional  philosophy, 
which  proves  that  there  may  be  free,  final  perma- 
nence in  moral  character:  therefore  all  his  life  he 
held  principles  which  would  undermine  his  certainty 
as  to  optimism  being  the  piety  of  science.  While  he 
was  consistent  with  his  philosophy,  he  could  not 
deny  that  a  man  may  fall  into  free,  final  permanence 


THEODORE  PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   125 

of  character :  therefore  he  never  had  authorization 
from  the  scientific  method  to  assert,  that,  to  the  wick- 
edest, life  is  no  absolute  failure,  or  that  Judas  Iscariot, 
Cain,  and  the  kidnapper  may  die  in  their  crimes,  and 
yet  be  sure  of  final  felicity. 

Gentlemen,  I  beg  you  to  fasten  searching  attention 
on  the  last  door  through  which,  I  will  not  say  eva- 
sive, but  insufficiently  clear  and  serious  thought  re- 
treats, when  brought  face  to  face  with  the  scientific 
method  on  the  topic  of  eternal  permanence  of  charac- 
ter. Will  you  tell  me  whether  this  height  of  bliss  to 
which  God  is  to  lift  man  through  suffering  is  finite 
or  infinite?  Finite,  of  course  you  would  say. 
Finite  beings  are  capable  of  being  lifted  only  to  a 
finite  degree  of  happiness.  Very  well,  then ;  sup- 
pose that  all  punishment,  here  and  hereafter,  pro- 
duces increased  bliss  at  last:  when  the  highest 
ascending  slope  has  been  reached,  that  bliss  will  yet 
be  a  finite  quantity,  will  it  not?  Let  us  here  be 
straightforward  as  sunbeams.  A  finite  being  can 
have  only  a  finite  bliss:  therefore,  even  God  can 
lift  a  finite  being  only  to  a  finite  degree  of  bliss. 
The  highest  bliss,  then,  which  you  will  attain  by 
your  method  of  managing  the  universe  will  be  a 
finite  degree  of  bliss.  Now,  could  not  Omnipotence 
have  lifted  finite  beings  to  a  finite  degree  of  bliss 
without  any  suffering  on  their  part  as  a  penalty  of 
sin,  or  without  their  sinning,  and  thus  incurring 
punishment?  Yes;  you  know  it  could.  Omnipo- 
tence can  do  any  thing  that  is  an  object  of  power ; 
that  is,  any  thing  not  involving  a  self-contradiction. 


126  ORTHODOXY. 

There  is  no  self-contradiction  in  supposing  that  God 
could  lift  finite  beings  to  the  highest  bliss  of  which 
they  are  capable,  and  yet  not  use  as  his  instrumen- 
tality the  suffering  induced  by  sin.  Assuredly  he 
could  do  this.  Why  has  he  not  done  it?  You  say  that 
all  suffering  of  punishment  for  sin  is  intended  to 
make  men  more  happy  at  the  last.  But  it  will  not ; 
for  it  cannot  make  them  more  happy  than  God  might 
have  made  them  without  it.  To  the  highest  bliss  of 
which  they  are  capable,  God  could  lift  men  up  with- 
out their  suffering  any  of  the  pains  induced  by  sin. 
Why  does  he  not  do  this  ?  Penal  pain  and  innocent 
pain  are  to.  be  distinguished  from  each  other  as 
remedial  agents.  Suffering  which  is  the  result  of 
sin,  and  suffering  which  is  not  the  result  of  sin,  are 
two  very  different  things.  It  is  not  denied  here  that 
the  latter  form  of  suffering  may  be  necessary  to  the 
highest  good  of  the  universe,  but  only  that  suffering 
as  the  result  of  sin.  is  thus  necessary.  Are  sin  and 
the  suffering  it  induces  necessary  to  the  highest 
good  of  the  universe,  as  your  theory  implies  ?  If  so, 
then  the  sin  is  necessary.  Who,  then,  is  responsible 
for  sin?  That  is  the  inexorable  question  which 
comes  at  last  before  every  man  who  cares  for  clear 
thought,  and  faces  the  fact  that  sin  and  its  penalties, 
with  self-propagating  powers,  now  exist ;  and  when 
you  have  gazed  long  enough  into  that  quarter  of  the 
heavens,  you  will  be  apt  to  make  up  your  minds  that 
yours  is  the  theory,  and  not  mine,  that  calls  in  ques- 
tion the  Divine  benevolence. 

As  Dean  Mansel  and  Whately  and  many  others 


THEODORE   PARKER'S   SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   127 

have  said,  "  God  is  an  infinite  God  now.  God  is  an 
infinitely  powerful  God  now ;  God  is  infinitely  good 
now ;  God  has  been  infinitely  powerful  and  good  for 
the  last  six  thousand  years :  but  now  sin  exists ;  now 
the  earth  groans  under  what  ought  not  to  be ;  and 
for  six  thousand  years  sin  and  its  suffering  have  been 
in  progress."  Yes ;  but  you  explain  all  that  by  say- 
ing that  every  thing  is  coming  out  by  and  by  —  into 
what  ?  Into  a  finite  degree  of  bliss.  God  could  have 
reached  that  without  the  existence  of  the  suffering 
caused  by  sin.  Why  did  he  not  ?  If  you  please,  the 
universe  is  more  serious  than  is  dreamed  by  men  who 
solace  sin  by  affirming  that  it  can  never  be  too  late  to 
mend,  and  that  character  does  not  tend  to  a  free, 
final  permanence,  bad  as  well  as  good.  That  senti- 
ment is  a  web  woven  in  the  looms  of  luxury,  and 
gilded  there,  but  one  that  will  not  bear  the  weight 
of  absolute  seriousness,  conducting  research  by  the 
scientific  method.  Whatever  outrages  science  will 
be  found  to  solace  sin. 

In  Theodore  Parker's  writings,  as  in  nearly  all 
productions  of  a  like  school  in  thought,  there  are 
abundant  self-contradictions  as  to  the  character  of  our 
Lord  and  the  authority  of  the  New-Testament  litera- 
ture. 

1.  At  twenty-four  years  of  age   Parker  believed 
that   Christ  was  miraculously  born.     "Christ  was 
the   Son   of    God  born  in   a   miraculous  manner " 
(i.66). 

2.  At  twenty-six  he  wrote  a  sonnet  in  praise  of  the 
Son  of  man  as  perfect. 


128  ORTHODOXY. 

3.  At  thirty-four  he  thought  that  possibly  Jesus 
may  have  taught  errors. 

4.  At  thirty-six  he  thinks  there  may  one  day  be  a 
greater  man   than   Christ.     "God  has  yet  greater 
men  in  store,  I  doubt  not  "  (i.  429). 

5.  At  forty-two  he  thinks   Christ  certainly  made 
mistakes  in  his  teaching. 

6.  At  forty-nine  he  says  the  negro  washerwoman 
who  keeps  the  wolf  from  her  unfathered  babes,  all 
fugitives  from  slavery,  is  not  less  glorious  than  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  on  the  mountain  uttering  his  Beatitudes. 

Now  thus  far  there  is  no  self-contradiction,  only 
change  of  opinion.  Do  not  suppose  I  mistake  mere 
change  of  opinion  for  self-contradiction,  although 
vacillation  is  a  trait  of  crudeness  of  thought.  What 
was  Parker's  final  thought  ? 

7.  In  his  latest  years  he  says  that  "  our  Lord's 
theology   contained    a    considerable    admixture    of 
error." 

8.  But  the  Christianity  of  Christ,  he  thinks,  was 
a  perfect  religion.     "  To  me  the  name  of  Christian- 
ity," he  says,  "  is  most  exceeding  dear." 

Goethe  would  have  reproved  Parker ;  for  Goethe 
used  to  say,  "  Tear  out  of  the  New  Testament  faith 
in  the  veracity  of  Christ  as  to  the  fact  of  the  super- 
natural, and  there  is  not  enough  left  to  build  faith 
on  in  regard  to  any  other  particular."  Parker  did 
the  former,  and  then  attempted  to  eulogize  the  trust- 
worthiness of  one  who,  as  Parker  affirmed,  was  yet 
to  be  surpassed,  and  had  taught  many  errors.  Thus 
Theodore  Parker  plays  fast  and  loose  with  the  his- 


THEODORE  PARKER'S  SELF-CONTRADICTIONS.   129 

toric  evidence  of  the  supernatural  in  Christianity, 
and  then  calls  in  as  aid  to  his  scheme  of  thought  a 
mass  of  historic  refuse,  good  for  nothing,  according 
to  his  own  testimony,  as  evidence.  This  self-contra- 
diction has  so  often  been  pointed  out  in  the  argu- 
ments of  outgrown  sceptics,  that  Strauss  was  consist- 
ent enough  in  his  lonely,  last  years,  as  some  of 
Parker's  followers  now  are,  to  drop  the  name 
Christian. 

No  one,  even  among  Theodore  Parker's  friends, 
has  built  heavily  on  his  foundations ;  and  how  can 
you  expect  me  to  build  on  them?  Where  is  the 
man  that  is  constructing  a  temple  to-day  with  Theo- 
dore Parker's  characteristic  propositions  as  corner- 
stones? He  is  not  in  Boston:  he  is  not  in  New 
York.  Mr.  Frothingham  says  that  Theodore  Par- 
ker will  have  no  immortality  as  a  religious  philoso- 
pher. Let  us  grant  him  immortality  as  a  crowned 
hero  and  martyr  in  the  conflict  with  slavery ;  let  us 
say  that  he  was  too  busy,  as  he  faced  the  foe,  to 
think  out  a  system  in  philosophy  on  this  yet  crude 
shore.  America  is  young  in  all  that  pertains  to  deep 
metaphysical  research.  My  main  motive  in  criticis- 
ing this  antislavery  hero  is  to  show  that  Boston,  as 
yet,  has  not  hewn  out  any  stone  in  philosophy  that 
is  fit  to  be  put  down  as  a  corner  of  a  temple  of  reli- 
gious science.  You  have  cut  out  from  the  mountains 
of  research  many  a  strong  piece  of  marble  for  other 
structures;  and  some  of  you  think  that  Theodore 
Parker  hewed  out  what  must  lie  at  the  corner  of  a 
philosophical  religion.  Julius  Muller,  and  not  Theo- 


130  ORTHODOXY. 

dore  Parker,  is  the  best  teacher  of  the  Absolute  Re- 
ligion. Our  transcendentalism  in  New  England  has 
not  uttered  a  final  word.  We  are  not  as  far  ad- 
vanced in  philosophy  as  we  suppose.  Germany 
thinks  so  little  of  New  England  in  this  particular, 
that  you  can  find  all  she  says  of  our  philosophy  in 
five  or  ten  pages  of  any  history  on  the  course  of 
metaphysical  thought  in  these  last  decades.  We 
overrate  ourselves.  Frothingham,  who  is  nearest  to 
being  Parker's  successor,  will  not  bear  his  own 
weight  on  that  stone  which  Theodore  Parker  hewed 
out.  There  is  not  a  church  of  the  liberal  sort  that 
to-day  bears  its  weight  on  that  stone,  considered 
merely  as  the  basis  of  a  philosophy.  Can  you  ex- 
pect me  to  build  on  it,  when  Plymouth  Rock  lies  here 
to  be  the  corner-stone  of  philosophy,  of  politics,  of 
society,  of  church,  of  factory,  of  school,  and  to  be 
blessed  in  the  future  as  it  has  been  in  the  past? 
[Applause.] 


V. 


THE  ATONEMENT  IN  THE  LIGHT  OP  SELF- 
EVIDENT  TRUTH. 

THE    SEVENTY-FOURTH    LECTURE     IN    THE    BOSTON    MONDAY 
LECTURESHIP,  DELIVERED  IK  TREMONT   TEMPLE  APRIL  16. 


"  QUID  refert  igitur,  quantia  jmnenta  fatiget 
Portlcibus  ?  quant  a  nemorum  vectetur  in  umbra  ? 
Jugera  quot  vicina  foro,  quas  emerit  aedes  ? 
Nemo  mains  felix." 

:  Sat.  iv.  5. 


"  NON  suinus  nostri,  sed  pretio  empti,  et  quail  pretio  ?    Sanguine 
DeL"  —  TEKTTTLLIAN:  Ad  Uxor.,  it  3. 


V. 


THE  ATONEMENT  IN  THE   LIGHT  OF 
SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

IT  is  recorded  by  Tacitus,  with  some  surprise,  that 
in  the  marshes  of  the  Rhine  there  lived  a  tribe  of 
Finns,  who  were  so  degraded  as  not  to  believe  in  the 
efficacy  of  prayer.  An  obscure  infidel  sheet  in  Bos- 
ton has  lately  said,  "The  whole  teaching  of  Free 
Religion  concerning  prayer  is  concentrated  in  this 
short  maxim,  Never  pray,  if  you  can  help  it."  In  a 
straightforward  course  of  thought  it  is  necessary  to 
admit  that  sometimes  we  cannot  help  praying.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  science  this  conceded  fact  means 
more  than  much.  "At  their  wits'  ends  all  men 
pray,"  Shakspeare  says.  But  what  all  men  do,  and 
cannot  help  doing,  is  instinctive.  The  existence  of 
an  organic  or  constitutional  instinct  is  adequate  scien- 
tific proof  of  the  existence  of  its  correlate.  Wher- 
ever we  find  a  fin,  there  has  been  provided  water  to 
match  it ;  a  wing,  air  to  match  it ;  an  eye,  light  to 
match  it ;  a  migrating  instinct,  a  climate  to  match  it. 
The  instinct  of  petition  is  no  exception  to  the  rule 

133 


134  ORTHODOXY. 

that  God  creates  no  hunger  to  mock  it.  Hegel  and 
Emerson  call  prayer  the  highest  act  of  the  human 
spirit.  The  proof  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer  is  its 
naturalness. 

Nothing  subdues  will  like  already  subdued  will. 
Decision  for  one's  self  is  the  best  teacher  of  decision 
to  others.  All  prayer  is  vain  repetition  unless  it 
include  the  petition,  Thy  will  be  done  in  me  as  in 
heaven.  It  means,  among  other  things,  a  subdued 
will ;  and  so,  when  a  Christian  worthy  of  the  name 
offers  prayer  with  one  who  is  not  yet  religiously 
resolute,  great  natural  laws  show  their  force.  The 
contagion  of  a  religiously  subdued  and  rejoicing  will 
is  brought  to  bear  upon  a  will  as  yet  unsubdued. 
Boston,  Eastern  Massachusetts,  New  England,  are 
witnessing  at  this  moment,  in  many  lives,  that  mys- 
tery which  for  eighteen,  centuries  has  been  called 
the  new  birth.  It  is  not  heresy  nor  novelty  to  teach 
that  God  converts  the  soul  according  to  the  natural 
laws  of  the  soul.  What  are  some  of  the  spiritual  laws 
which  are  now  in  such  subtle  operation  close  around 
us,  and  undoubtedly  are  at  all  times  capable  of  doing 
what  we  see  them  effecting  now  ? 

Prayer,  it  has  commonly  been  taught,  has  four  ele- 
ments, —  adoration,  confession,  thanksgiving,  petition. 
I  hold  that  we  must  always  add  a  fifth  part,  namely, 
total  self-surrender.  The  four  parts  without  the 
fifth  are  what  the  Scriptures  call  vain  repetition,  and 
not  prayer.  "Whoever  offers  prayer  in  all  its  five 
parts  may  be  assured,  in  the  name  of  natural  law, 
that  he  will  obtain  religious  aid  of  a  kind  that  he  can 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    135 

receive  from  no  other  source.  Men  who  revere  the 
scientific  method  will  admit  that  experiment  is  the 
crucial  test  of  truth.  Who  dares  try  the  experiment 
of  prayer  in  the  sense  of  total  and  affectionate  self-sur- 
render to  Grod  ?  A  Boston  scholar  has  lately  told  the 
public  that  a  somewhat  rough  man  of  affairs  in  this 
city,  in  the  presence  of  the  American  evangelist, 
thought  he  would  be  manly  enough  to  try  the  experi- 
ment of  offering  prayer.  "But,"  said  the  latter, 
" you  must  be  sincere."  —  "I  know  very  little  of  this 
thing,"  the  man  replied;  "but  I  am  willing  to  be  sin- 
cere in  one  prayer  at  least."  —  "Very  well,"  said  the 
evangelist,  "let  us  kneel  down,  here  and  now,  to- 
gether ;  and  do  you  say  from  the  depths  of  your  heart, 
*  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner.'"  The  merchant 
did  that ;  and  I  suppose,  from  what  followed,  that  he 
did  it  in  a  genuine  way.  Certain  it  is  that  there 
struck  across  that  man's  countenance  a  beam  of  light 
from  the  sun  behind  the  sun,  a  peace  and  an  illumina- 
tion unknown  to  him  before.  He  rose  up,  saying, 
"  This  is  a  singular  experience.  My  partner,  do  you 
do  as  I  have  done,  and  perhaps  there  will  be  similar 
results."  The  partner  was  a  sceptic ;  but  he  knelt 
and  offered  the  prayer,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner ; "  and  he,  too,  rose  up,  smitten  across  the  fore- 
head with  the  light  that  falls  out  of  those  ancestral 
spaces  from  which  all  souls  come,  and  into  which  all 
men  haste.  Facts  like  these  are  the  chief  news  of 
this  serious  day.  Boston  loves  clear  ideas.  You  say, 
"  All  this  is  mystery."  It  is  fact,  however,  as  age 
after  age  can  witness.  But  analyze  this  greatly  sug- 
gestive scene  a  little. 


136  OETHODOXY. 

What  is  implied  in  the  words,  God  be  merciful  to 
me  a  sinner? 

1.  That  there  is  a  God. 

2.  That  there  is  a  moral  law. 

3.  That  the  moral  law  represents  the  will  of  a 
person. 

4.  That  the  law  and  the  person  have  unconditional 
authority. 

5.  That  I  ought  to  obey  that  authority. 

6.  That  I  could  have  done  what  I  ought. 

7.  That  my  will  is  free. 

8.  That  I  freely  refused  to  do  what  I  ought. 

9.  That   the  ill-desert  of  this  refusal  is  wholly 
mine. 

10.  That  I  cannot  remove  this  ill-desert  from  my- 
self. 

11.  That  there  is  obligation  existing  on  my  part  to 
satisfy  the  violated  majesty  of  the  law. 

12.  That  my  own  future  good  works  cannot  meet 
this  obligation. 

13.  That  God's  mercy  must  meet  it  for  me,  if  it  is 
to  be  met  at  all. 

14.  That  I  implore  God's  mercy  so  to  meet  it. 

15.  That  I  trust  myself  implicitly  to  his  mercy. 

16.  That  I    do  so  with  entire  freedom  from  the 
spirit  of  self-righteousness. 

17.  That  I  do  so  in  the  spirit  of  rejoicing  loyalty 
to   a   personal    Father,    Redeemer,   and   Sanctifier; 
one  God,  who  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come. 

18.  That  in  all  these  beliefs  I  hold  propositions, 
which,  in  my  business  and  my  family,  in  public  and 
in  secret,  I  mean  to  transmute  into  action. 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    137 

This  prayer,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner,"  is 
the  articulate  voice  of  an  organic  instinct.  But  it 
contains  these  eighteen  and  more  propositions,  which 
are  thus  not  slightly  emphasized  by  the  structure  of 
human  nature.  Transmute  these  beliefs  into  deeds, 
saturate  society  with  these  propositions,  and  have 
they  any  force?  Is  it  any  mystery  that  men  who 
offer  this  prayer  sincerely  are  smitten  through  and 
through  by  a  redemptive  illumination?  These  rays 
are  javelins  out  of  the  light  of  the  Great  White 
Throne.  Let  them  permeate  business,  politics,  edu- 
cation, the  newspaper  press,  literature,  and  all  pri- 
vate life.  The  mystery  of  conversion!  —  if  there 
were  not  conversion  when  a  man  seriously  and  gladly 
submits  himself  to  the  practical  application  of  all 
these  propositions,  that  would  be  a  mystery.  I  am 
not  denying  at  all  that  there  is  supernatural  action 
in  every  case  of  conversion ;  but  I  defy  any  form  of 
clear  thought  to  show  that  these  propositions  are  not 
all  in  the  prayer,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner." 
I  defy  any  man  to  justify  in  the  name  of  science  the 
Finns  of  Flanders  or  of  Boston  for  not  offering  that 
prayer. 

Two  hundred  churches  in  New  England  are  uniting 
with  Boston  in  special  services.  Your  newspaper 
press  affirms  that  thirty  thousand  people  were  at  the 
Tabernacle  yesterday.  Business-men's  prayer-meet- 
ings crowd  their  places  of  assembly.  The  hush  of 
God's  work,  through  natural  and  supernatural  laws, 
is  in  Boston. 

Some  simpleton  in  clerical  garb  said  lately  to  that 


138  ORTHODOXY. 

theologian  of  Andover  who  has  done  more  for  reli- 
gious science  in  this  country  than  any  other  man 
since  Jonathan  Edwards,  "Is  it  not  singular  that 
Providence  should  effect  so  much  through  inferior 
laborers?  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Lord  has 
done  much  in  Boston  through  weak  instruments." 
—  "I  wish,"  said  Professor  Park  in  reply,  " to  be 
reverent  in  speaking  of  the  work  of  the  Lord ;  but 
Mr.  Moody  is  a  great  man."  [Applause.] 

A  great  man !  "  There  are  no  great  men,"  Profes- 
sor Park  would,  with  Massillon,  have  said  in  another 
mood:  "  God  only  is  great."  A  smaller  Frenchman 
than  Massillon  —  Renan  —  wrote  not  long  ago,  "  We 
never  shall  keep  the  world  in  order  until  science  has 
learned  how  to  explode  the  globe.  Then  we  shall  say 
to  the  Philistinish  masses,  Peace  under  penalty! 
The  power  of  natural  law  is  behind  us."  But  there 
are  natural  laws,  which,  instead  of  exploding  the 
globe,  will  explode  all  its  icebergs, 

"  Unlock  the  zone,  the  ice-fields  clothe  with  wheat, 
And  make  God's  pathway  round  the  world  complete." 

It  is  scientifically  certain  that  Christianity  is  in  pos- 
session of  the  theory  of  those  laws ;  and  if  she  were 
only  in  the  practice  of  them ! 

Take  your  rough  bit  of  glass,  and  hew  it  here  and 
there,  and  you  have  not  made  a  prism ;  but,  as  soon 
as  you  have  produced  a  prism,  that  instant  the  light 
striking  through  it  is  unravelled,  and  you  have  by 
natural  laws  a  revelation  not  to  be  imagined  before 
you  see  the  colors.  Let  a  man  surrender  to  God ; 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    139 

let  him  hew  himself  into  a  religious  prism  which  has 
reason,  conscience,  and  self-surrender  to  God,  as  re- 
vealed in  his  word  and  works,  for  its  three  sides,  — 
and  the  instant  that  posture  of  total,  affectionate, 
irreversible  self-surrender,  is  reached,  God  will  flash 
through  the  human  faculties:  the  seven  colors  will 
fall  on  your  face,  on  your  families,  on  public  life,  on 
all  the  greed  and  fraud  of  American  civilization,  and 
give  you  as  a  people  that  coat  of  many  colors  which 
shall  prove  you  to  be  the  beloved  son  of  the  Father 
as  a  nation.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

When  a  man  has  wilfully  violated  the  radiant 
moral  law,  it  is  instinctive,  if  the  eyes  are  kept  open 
to  its  light,  to  feel  that  something  ought  to  be  done 
to  bring  about  satisfactory  relations  between  the 
rebellious  spirit  and  the  Author  of  that  insufferably 
resplendent  moral  enactment.  What  ought  to  be 
done?  The  soul  should  acquire  similarity  of  feel- 
ing with  God.  Without  that  its  peace  is  scientifi- 
cally known  to  be  a  natural  impossibility.  But  is  that 
enough?  Face  to  face  with  self-evident  truths,  can 
an  unfettered  human  spirit  which  has  behind  it  a 
record  of  disloyalty  find  intelligent  and  wholly  trem- 
orless  peace,  even  after  it  is  delivered  from  the  love 
of  what  ought  not  to  be  ?  When  an  evil  man  has 
reformed,  does  he  have  a  scientifically  justifiable  right 
to  feel  that  his  own  excellence,  taken  wholly  alone, 
ought  to  secure  his  entire  harmony  with  the  nature 


140  ORTHODOXY. 

of  tilings?  What  do  the  organic  and  ineradicable 
human  instincts,  scientifically  interpreted,  say  on  this 
point  ? 

Lady  Macbeth,  Shakspeare  tells  us,  could  not 
wash  her  hands  white,  although  she  had  learned  to 
hate  her  crime  so  as  to  be  made  insane  by  the  mem- 
ory of  it. 

Doctor.  —  Look  how  she  rubs  her  hands ! 

Gentleman.  —  It  is  an  accustomed  action  with  her  to  seem 
thus  washing  her  hands.  I  have  known  her  to  continue  in  this 
a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

Lady  Macbeth.  —  Yet  here's  the  spot. 

Doctor.  —  Hark !  she  speaks.  I  will  set  down  what  comes 
from  her. 

Lady  Macbeth.  —  Out,  damned  spot!  out,  I  say!  .  .  .  Here's 
the  smell  of  the  blood  still.  All  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  will 
not  sweeten  this  little  hand. 

Doctor.  —  More  needs  she  the  divine  than  the  physician. 
God,  God,  forgive  us  all! 

Macbeth,  act  v.  sc.  1. 

Is  your  Shakspeare  a  partisan,  when,  describing  in 
Macbeth  the  laws  of  human  nature,  he  makes  him 
say,— 

"  Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 
Clean  from  my  hand?    No:  this  my  hand  will  rather 
The  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine, 
Making  the  green  —  one  red." 

"  Methought  I  heard  a  voice  cry,  '  Sleep  no  more! 
Macbeth  does  murder  sleep,'  —  the  innocent  sleep, 
Sleep  that  knits  up  the  ravelled  sleeve  of  care, 
The  death  of  each  day's  life,  sore  labor's  bath, 
Balm  of  hurt  minds,  great  nature's  second  course, 
Chief  nourisher  in  life's  feast. 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    141 

Still  it  cried,  '  Sleep  no  more ! '  to  all  the  house : 

'  Glamis  hath  murdered  sleep;  and  therefore  Cawdor 

Shall  sleep  no  more,  Macbeth  shall  sleep  no  more.'  " 

"  I  could  not  say  '  Amen  ' 
When  they  did  say  '  God  bless  us.'  " 

Lady  Macbeth.  —  Consider  it  not  so  deeply. 

Macbeth.  — But  wherefore  could  I  not  pronounce  "  Amen  "? 
I  had  most  need  of  blessing,  and  "  Amen  " 
Stuck  in  my  throat. 

Lady  Macbeth.  —  These  deeds  must  not  be  thought 
After  these  ways :  so,  it  will  make  us  mad. 

Ibid.,  act  ii.  sc.  2. 

These  deeds  must  be  thought  of  after  these  ways  ;  so,  it 
will  make  us  wise. 

Not  Plato,  not  Aristotle,  not  Voltaire,  not  Strauss, 
not  Renan,  not  Parker,  can  wash  Lady  Macbeth's  red 
right  hand. 

Shakspeare  describes  the  laws  of  your  sleep  and 
mine. 

Instead  of  great  literature,  do  you  prefer  actual 
life,  to  illustrate  the  laws  of  human  nature?  A 
schoolmate  of  mine  lately  committed  murder.  He 
was  a  foremost  man  in  a  church.  He  was  nearly 
fifty  years  of  age.  Through  thirty  years  he  had 
suffered  from  an  unhappy  marriage.  God  knows 
what  his  trials  had  been.  But  the  man  was  sane. 
He  was  in  health.  Not  a  whisper  has  been  raised  in 
his  defence,  although  he  is  to  be  tried  for  his  life 
in  a  few  weeks.  Coming  home  from  an  evening 
gathering,  his  wife  and  he  passed  into  their  house 
together,  apparently  at  peace  with  each  other.  Half 


142  ORTHODOXY. 

an  hour  later,  when  she  was  asleep,  the  monster  with 
an  axe  took  his  wife's  life. 

Do  not  avert  your  gaze,  my  friends,  from  this  lurid 
point  of  light.  The  narrative  is  of  a  piece  with 
much  else  that  has  actually  happened  in  the  nights 
and  days  of  our  softly  rolling  globe ;  and  yet  you  say 
it  is  not  philosophy.  I  affirm  that  events  like  these 
are  facts,  and  that  philosophy  must  face  facts  of  every 
description,  or  once  for  all  cease  to  call  itself  scien- 
tific. This  piercing  gleam  out  of  experience  is  blue 
fire,  indeed ;  but  not  a  little  radiance  of  that  sort  has 
crept  before  now  through  the  volcanic  crevices  of 
the  world.  When  by  this  ominous  but  actual  lamp 
you  gaze  intently  upon  the  glitter  of  this  axe,  and 
upon  the  flashing  of  the  afterward  dripping  blood, 
you  will  find  that  many  problems  as  to  the  peace  of 
the  soul  are  here  exposed  to  view,  under  a  flame  in- 
tense enough  to  permit  their  scientific  examination. 

Both  these  persons  were  my  schoolmates.  I  knew 
each  of  them  well,  and  think  I  have  some  reason  to  say 
that  I  understand  what,  probably,  the  whole  interior 
sky  was  in  this  man.  One  of  the  things  that  proved 
his  guilt,  aside  from  his  confession,  which  he  made  at 
the  end  of  a  week,  was  a  remark  which  he  curiously 
enough  repeated  to  his  neighbors  months  before  his 
crime:  "Can  I  not  repent,  even  if  I  do  a  great 
wrong,  and  so  repent  as  to  go  to  heaven  ?  Is  it  not 
taught  that  a  man  may  repent  and  be  saved,  although 
he  does  something  very  bad  ? "  The  man  was  not 
well  educated.  He  had  in  his  mind  the  query, 
whether  one  might  not  commit  some  atrocity,  and 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    143 

yet  repent,  and  by  the  good  grace  of  Almighty  God, 
•who  is  of  too  pure  eyes  to  behold  iniquity,  be  saved 
through  the  Atonement.  Perhaps  he  thought  heaven 
was  a  place  rather  than  a  state. 

Confucius  said  on  the  Yellow  Sea,  "Heaven 
means  principle."  What  if  a  man  permanently  loses 
principle?  must  he  or  must  he  not  lose  heaven? 
Under  the  law  of  judicial  blindness,  is  it  possible  for 
a  man  to  lose  principle  permanently? 

This  man,  befogged  but  not  insane,  took  up  the 
theory  —  this  was  proved  before  the  jury  —  that  he 
might  commit  murder,  and  yet  afterward  repent,  and 
go  to  heaven.  And  he  committed  murder;  and  I 
think  his  chief  temptation,  aside  from  vexatious  mar- 
ried life,  was  that  lie  whispered  to  him  out  of  the  very 
bowels  of  Gehenna,  that  the  Atonement  is  enough  to 
save  a  man  who  makes  a  bargain  of  it,  and  tries  to 
cheat  God.  That  man  did  on  a  large  scale  what  it 
is  possible  you  and  I  have  been  trying  to  do  on  a 
small  scale.  We  do  not  commit  murder;  but  we 
would,  if  we  had  our  own  way,  very  gladly  cheat  God 
of  half  our  life  at  least,  because  we  remember  that  we 
can  repent  at  last,  and  all  will  come  out  well.  Some 
men  think,  that,  if  they  repent  after  they  go  out  of 
this  life,  all  will  be  well :  that  is  rather  a  large  appli- 
cation of  this  principle. 

Pardon  me,  gentlemen ;  but  you  must  be  shocked 
into  due  attention  to  the  monstrous  caricatures  of 
religious  truth  which  often  exist  in  half-educated 
minds,  and  which  underlie  a  large  part  of  the  infidel 
attack  on  Christianity  in  this  latest  age,  as  they  have 
underlaid  every  attack  in  every  past  age. 


144  ORTHODOXY. 

In  this  kind  of  analysis  of  the  actual  and  typical 
experiences  of  men,  I  find  more  philosophy  than  I 
can  put  into  an  hour's  declamation.  Here  is  a  gleam 
right  out  of  human  nature,  and  from  our  day ;  and  I 
wish  you  to  look  at  it  while  we  ask  how  far  self-evi- 
dent truth  can  teach  us  what  the  Atonement  can  do. 
I  affirm  that  the  Atonement  must  be  something  that 
does  not  bargain  with  God  for  a  piece  of  life  or  the 
whole  of  it.  It  must  not  undermine  principle.  We 
are  assured  by  self-evident  truth,  that  the  Atonement, 
if  it  is  to  be  effectual,  must  in  some  way  provide  for 
similarity  of  feeling  with  God.  Conscience,  with  all 
its  great  operations,  exists  in  us,  and  is  going  on  into 
the  Unseen  Holy  with  us ;  and  we  must  be  at  peace 
with  all  its  multiplex  lines  of  activity. 

This  man  committed  murder  deliberately.  Per- 
haps he  now  has  had  grace  given  him  to  loathe  his 
crime.  In  his  cell  he  sings  hymns,  it  is  said ;  is  glad 
to  receive  religious  solace ;  hopes  that  his  execution 
may  be  the  gateway  to  heaven ;  and  his  reliance  is  all 
in  the  Atonement.  He  really  has  come  to  hate,  let  us 
suppose,  all  that  God  hates,  and  to  love  all  that  God 
loves.  He  has,  let  us  grant,  what  is  called  the  new 
birth.  Does  that  erase  or  cover  the  record  of  the  mur- 
derer ?  Let  us  be  mercilessly  straightforward  in  our 
answer  to  this  question ;  for  it  touches  your  case  and 
mine.  I  am  approaching  a  fundamental  self-con- 
tradiction of  the  lawless  and  sharply  mischievous 
dreaming  of  many,  as. to  the  nature  and  sequences 
of  our  refusal  to  say  "  I  will "  when  the  Divine  Voice 
says  "  I  ought."  This  man  has  learned  to  loathe  the 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TKTJTH.    145 

murder ;  but  the  record  of  his  crime  is  behind  him. 
Do  you  think  that  he  is,  or  ought  to  be,  at  peace, 
simply  because  he  really  loathes  every  thing  that 
leads  to  murder?  Here  is  a  question  which  I 
put  before  you  in  the  name  of  the  scientific  method, 
begging  you  to  look  on  it  with  a  love  of  clear 
ideas,  and  wholly  apart  from  any  conclusions  in 
religious  science.  Do  you  think  that  human  nature, 
with  the  great  operations  of  conscience  in  it,  and  es- 
pecially with  that  prophetic  office  which  anticipates 
the  continuance  of  the  approval  and  disapproval 
which  we  know  inevitably  follow  our  acts,  good  and 
bad ;  that  sense  that  this  approval  or  disapproval  is  not 
only  from  ourselves,  but  from  a  Somewhat  and  Some 
One  who  is  in  us,  but  not  of  us,  is  likely  to  allow  this 
man,  in  the  name  of  his  own  excellence  alone,  to  be 
wholly  at  peace  about  this  record  of  murder,  even  after 
he  has  reformed  ?  Let  us  fasten  our  thoughts  on  this 
one  phase  of  human  experience,  typical  of  range  after 
range  of  human  crime,  and  let  us,  if  possible,  attain 
clearness  on  the  subject,  whatever  theory  stands  or 
falls.  "  Was  klar  ist,  wahr  ist"  the  Germans  say,  — 
"  What  is  clear  is  true."  There  is  a  whole  range  of 
liberal  thinking  which  asserts,  that,  when  a  man  re- 
forms, he  has  done  enough ;  and  that  style  of  thought 
I  wish  to  test  —  by  what?  By  the  street;  by  the 
axioms  of  self-evident  truth  applied  by  the  scientific 
method.  My  schoolmate  who  has  murdered  his 
wife  has  repented,  let  us  say ;  and  he  is  at  the  edge 
of  death  itself.  It  may  be  that  the  first  spirit  he  will 
meet  in  the  Unseen  Holy  will  be  that  which  he  sent 


146  ORTHODOXY. 

thither  before  its  time.  No,  not  the  first  spirit :  he 
will  meet  God  there.  He  meets  God  now.  In  con- 
science, the  still  small  voice  is  God's  voice.  He 
listens  to  that ;  he  remembers  the  past ;  he  knows 
he  has  learned  to  loathe  his  crime:  but  is  that 
enough?  Was  it  enough  for  Macbeth?  Was  it 
enough  for  Lady  Macbeth  ? 

When  a  great  question  concerning  the  organiza- 
tion of  human  nature  comes  up,  the  best  way  to 
decide  it  is  to  notice  not  only  the  deepest  literatures 
of  the  world,  but  a  long  range  of  experience  in 
history,  and  see  how  man  has  acted  age  after  age. 
Have  the  nations  acted  as  if  they  thought  reform 
was  enough  to  give  peace  after  a  great  crime  has  been 
committed?  We  know  that  the  heathen  religions  of 
the  world  have  given  large  space  to  penance  and 
sacrifice.  I  do  not  wish  to  exaggerate  the  amazing 
record ;  but  there  is  enough  to  show  that  more  than 
much  has  been  done  age  after  age,  in  history,  by 
this  desire  to  be  at  peace  with  conscience  and  with 
what  is  to  be  met  behind  the  veil.  These  heathen 
religions  have  indicated  in  unspeakable  ways  that 
peace  is  not  attained  even  after  reformation.  The 
devotees  of  those  religions  have  desired  to  be  calm 
before  God;  and  many  deep  teachers  have  taught, 
with  more  or  less  distinctness,  the  necessity  of  loving 
what  God  loves,  and  hating  what  God  hates.  But 
how  has  the  human  heart  acted?  The  whole  history 
of  the  race,  I  claim,  has  proved  that  men  in  general 
have  not  felt  ready  to  go  before  God  in  their  own 
righteousness  even  after  they  have  reformed.  My 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    147 

schoolmate  here  has  learned  to  hate  his  murder ;  and 
now  he  must  go  before  God.  He  has  the  righteous- 
ness, let  us  hope,  of  loving  and  hating  what  God 
loves  and  hates ;  but  there  is  that  past  behind  him. 
Conscience  is  in  him ;  and  now,  when  the  operations  of 
conscience  have  their  free  course,  is  that  man,  as  he 
steps  into  the  Unseen  Holy,  ready  to  depend  on  nothing 
but  his  own  righteousness? 

Gentlemen,  the  greatest  question  in  religious  science 
is  before  you,  and,  I  hope,  in  such  a  concrete  form  as 
to  be  intelligible.  Keeping  now  your  unpartisan  and 
fathomless  Shakspeare  open,  and  not  removing  your 
thoughts  from  this  concrete  case  of  to-day,  will  you 
allow  me  to  recite  analytically  a  few  self-evident 
truths  concerning  the  Atonement  ? 

1.  It  is  self-evident  that  a  thing  cannot  be  and  not 
be  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  sense. 

If  transcendentalism  has  a  corner-stone  of  ada- 
mant, it  is  this  axiom,  —  that  a  thing  cannot  be  and 
not  be  at  the  same  instant  and  in  the  same  significa- 
tion. When  will  a  philosophy  arise  that  will  under- 
mine a  certainty  without  which  philosophy  itself 
cannot  exist? 

2.  It  is,  therefore,  self-evident  that  we  cannot  be 
at  once  at  peace  and  at  variance  with  conscience  ; 

3.  That  we  cannot  be  at  once  at  peace  and  at  vari- 
ance with  the  record  of  our  past ; 

4.  That  we  cannot  be  at  once  at  peace  and  at  vari- 
ance with  God. 

The  supremely  terrific  and  supremely  alluring  cans 
and  cannots  of  the  nature  of  things  are  all  implied  in 


148  ORTHODOXY. 

the  words,  "God  cannot  deny  himself."  Here  we 
put  our  feet  upon  adamant  which  Thor's  hammer 
cannot  pulverize,  without,  at  the  same  time,  reducing 
itself  to  powder.  The  nature  of  things  has  in  it  no 
fate  at  all,  but  is  the  total  outcome  of  God's  free 
choice ;  and  his  free  choice  is  the  total  outcome  of  his 
infinite  perfection.  He  cannot  deny  himself;  and  so 
forever  and  forever  it  will  be  true  that  the  axioms 
of  the  nature  of  things  are  adamant,  not  only  for 
this  world,  but  also  for  the  next. 

5.  It  is  self-evident,  that,  while  we  continue  to  exist 
as  personalities  of  the  same  plan  we  now  exhibit  in 
our  natures,  conscience  will  be  something  we  cannot 
escape  from. 

"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  heaven  of  hell,  a  hell  of  heaven." 

6.  It  is  self-evident  that  our  past  is  irreversible. 
Do  you  say  that  when  I  assert  in  the   name   of 

the  nature  of  conscience,  and  of  the  irreversibleness 
of  the  past,  that  there  will  be  regret  in  the  universe 
forever  and  forever  on  account  of  the  losses  sin  has 
occasioned,  and  when  I  affirm  that  some  part  of 
that  shadow  will  fall  on  the  sea  of  glass,  and  will  not 
be  invisible  from  the  Great  White  Throne,  I  come 
near  uttering  blasphemy  ?  Does  the  Bible  utter  blas- 
phemy when  it  says  there  is  a  Lamb  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world?  My  proposition  is  only 
that  biblical  proposition  in  scientific  shape.  No 
doubt  all  the  losses  sin  has  caused  were  foreseen ; 
and  no  doubt  the  plan  for  the  rescue  of  men  existed 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TKTJTH.    149 

in  the  councils  of  Omnipotence  from  eternity.  No 
doubt  there  was,  therefore,  as  the  unsearchable  depth 
of  that  metaphor  asserts,  a  Lamb  slain  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world.  He  whom  we  dare  not  name 
had  sympathy  from  the  first  for  the  distress  he  fore- 
saw would  result  from  the  abuse  of  that  gift  of  free- 
will, without  which  there  can  be  no  virtue.  Forever 
and  forever  the  losses  caused  by  what  ought  not  to 
have  been  will  continue.  The  Scriptures,  therefore, 
speak  of  a  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  or  of  a  shadow  that  is  not  invisible,  and  never 
has  been  invisible,  and  never  will  be  invisible,  from 
the  Great  White  Throne.  Before  you  accuse  scien- 
tific speech  of  blasphemy  instead  of  biblical  depth  of 
metaphor  on  this  theme,  remember  that  the  Atone- 
ment is  not  an  afterthought.  The  plan  of  redemp- 
tion is  no  insertion  into  the  universe  to  correct  mis- 
takes. It  is  a  part  of  the  perfect  purpose  of  Him 
who  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come,  who,  in  all  eternities 
past  and  in  all  eternities  future,  will  be  faithful  to  the 
plan  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come.  [Applause.] 

7.  It  is  self-evident  that  we  cannot  escape  from  our 
record; 

8.  That  we  cannot  escape  from  God  ; 

9.  That  harmonization  with  our  environment  is  the 
indispensable  condition  of  peace  of  soul; 

10.  That  our  environment  in  this  world  and  the  next 
consists  unalterably  of  God,  conscience,  and  our  record; 

11.  That  we  must  be  free  from  the  love  of  what 
ought  not  to  be  before  we  can  be  at  peace  with  the 
moral  law  which  requires  what  ought  to  be. 


150  OBTHODOXY. 

"Si  vis  fugere  a  Deo;  fuge  ad  Deum,"  says  the 
Latin  proverb.  "  If  you  wish  to  flee  from  God,  flee 
to  God ; "  for  the  only  way  to  flee  from  him  is  to 
flee  to  him. 

12.  It  is  scientifically  incontrovertible   that  con- 
science produces  in  us  a  sense  of  ill-desert  whenever 
we  say  "  I  will  not "  to  the  Divine  "  I  ought ; " 

13.  That  conscience  produces  in  us  this  sense  of 
ill-desert,   whenever    we    accurately   remember   the 
record  of  our  intelligent  refusal  to  say  "  I  will "  to 
the  Divine  "  I  ought ;  " 

14.  That  no  lapse  of  time  lessens  this  sense  of  ill- 
desert,  if  the  memory  of  such  refusal  is  vivid  and 
thoughtful. 

Forty-eight  hours  ago  we  were  passing  through 
the  anniversary  of  the  assassination  of  President 
Lincoln.  Some  years  have  elapsed  since  that  atro- 
city ;  but  have  our  opinions  changed  as  to  the  blame- 
worthiness  of  the  principal  actor  in  it  ?  If  the  assas- 
sination in  1865  ought  not  to  have  been,  it  will  be  true 
forever  that  it  ought  not  to  have  been.  It  is  a  long 
time  since  the  world  had  fixed  opinions  about  Nero 
and  Caligula ;  but  we  do  not  think  of  changing  our 
opinions  simply  because  of  the  passage  of  time.  Do 
we  not  disapprove  all  that  ought  to  be  disapproved, 
and  do  so  once  for  all  ?  It  is  a  terrible  certainty  that 
Judas  Iscariot,  if  he  ever  blamed  himself  once  justly, 
must  continue  to  blame  himself  forever  and  forever. 
There  is  a  noose  that  a  man  may  put  about  his  own 
neck  and  tie,  but  which  he  cannot  untie.  There  is  ir- 
reversibility  in  the  past ;  and  the  action  which  ought 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TBUTH.    151 

not  to  have  been  will  always  be  regarded  as  such  when 
we  vividly  and  faithfully  remember  its  character.  It 
will  be  impossible  for  us  not  to  disapprove  such  an 
action ;  for  conscience  is  a  part  of  our  nature,  and  its 
natural  operation  is  to  disapprove  all  that  ought  not 
to  be.  Murder  ought  not  to  have  been;  and  Macbeth 
will  never  think  that  it  ought  to  have  been,  or  make  it 
not  to  have  been.  You  were  born  in  Boston:  can 
Omnipotence  make  it  true  you  were  not  born  in  Bos- 
ton ?  You  have  done  what  ought  not  to  have  been : 
can  Omnipotence  make  it  true  that  what  ought  not 
to  have  been  ought  to  have  been  ?  Conscience  is  so 
fearfully  and  wonderfully  made,  that  you  must  for- 
ever and  forever  disapprove  what  ought  not  to  have 
been.  When  a  man  has  had  an  arm  amputated,  it 
cannot  be  put  back :  it  is  gone  once  for  all. 

How  evident  it  is,  that,  under  natural  law,  a  man 
may  drift  on  in  careless  aesthetic  ways  till  he  loses 
the  perception  of  the  beautiful !  He  learns  to  love 
that  which  aesthetically  ought  not  to  be ;  and  he  blunts 
his  aesthetic  sense  until  you  say  he  could,  by  a  long 
process  of  culture,  be  brought  back  perhaps,  but  never 
will  be.  You  say  his  probation  is  over  aesthetically. 
On  every  conceivable  side,  except  the  moral  and 
religious,  character  is  subject  to  probations,  and  at- 
tains permanence  ;  but  on  theee  sides  a  whim  of  the 
luxurious  ages  forbids  you  to  hear  the  truth  which 
all  great  and  strenuous  ages  have  asserted,  namely, 
that  probations  of  course  exist  there  as  they  do  else- 
where. Undeniably  there  are  aesthetical  probations, 
physical  probations,  and  intellectual  probations.  But 


152  ORTHODOXY. 

now  you  affirm,  you  who  assert  the  unity  of  law, 
that  there  are  no  moral  probations.  Do  you  per- 
ceive any  self  contradiction  in  that  intellectual  pro- 
ceeding ? 

14.  It  is  a  scientifically  verifiable  fact  of  expe- 
rience, that  conscience,  when  we  keep  our  eyes  open 
to  light,  produces  in  us,  besides  the  sense  of  ill-de- 
sert, a  feeling  that  something  ought  to  be  done  to 
satisfy  the  rightly  resplendent  majesty  and  the  plainly 
unconditional  and  eternal  authority  of  the  violated 
law  which  says  "  I  ought." 

If  we  have  agreed  up  to  this  proposition,  we  shall 
not  part  here.  Will  you  remember  who  committed 
the  murder?  What  were  you  thinking  a  few  min- 
utes ago,  when  I  outlined  before  you  a  typical  human 
atrocity  ?  The  man  has  learned  to  loathe  his  crime. 
Were  you  ready  to  say  that  he  had  done  enough  ? 
Something  ought  to  be  done  besides  his  learning  to 
be  sorry  that  he  had  murdered  his  wife.  You  were 
very  sure  of  this  face  to  face  with  the  concrete  case. 
You  say  that  this  piece  of  current  history  is  a  fact, 
but  that  I  am  now  leading  you  into  vapor.  Well, 
go  back  to  that  scrap  of  red-hot  iron  out  of  the  pit, 
and  touch  it.  It  is  not  a  fog.  It  burns  up  fog.  It  is, 
although  blue  flame,  destructive  of  all  vapor.  And 
you,  face  to  face  with  the  concrete  example,  are  not 
likely,  in  that  man's  case,  to  believe  that  the  per- 
fumes of  Arabia  will  sweeten  the  hand  that  has  driven 
the  axe  through  the  skull  of  the  nearest  and  dearest. 
That  man  is  not  authorized  to  be  at  peace,  even  after 
he  has  reformed,  if  he  depends  only  on  his  own  excel- 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    153 

lence.  That  alone  cannot  give  him  peace  of  soul ; 
and  the  question  is,  whether  any  thing  else  can.  One 
of  the  sceptical  late  schools  of  thought  asserts  that 
science  knows  nothing  of  Atonement  for  sin.  All 
causes  that  are  once  put  in  action  produce  effects 
which  become  causes,  and  which  must  take  their 
course.  If  we  bring  into  existence  evil  causes,  they 
will  produce  their  natural  effects ;  and  we  cannot  erase 
or  cover  the  past.  The  idea  of  a  man  being  relieved 
from  the  natural  results  of  his  sin  is  in  conflict  with 
clear  thought.  These  are  propositions  which  just 
now  are  receiving  indorsement  from  infidelity  itself. 
Your  old  style  of  doubt  is  slowly  undermined  by  the 
newer,  I  had  almost  said  by  that  more  Christian 
style,  which  is  prepared  to  be  amazed  if  it  can  be 
shown  clearly  that  any  great  arrangement  can  deliver 
us  from  the  terrors  of  the  past.  "  Plato,  Plato,"  said 
Socrates,  "perhaps  God  can  forgive  deliberate  sin; 
but  I  do  not  see  how." 

15.  It  is  scientifically  clear  from  the  facts  of  per- 
sonal and  general  experience,  that,  in  the  absence  of 
satisfaction,  conscience  forebodes  punishment ; 

16.  It  forebodes  this  with  such  pertinacity  and 
force,  that  the  prophetic  action  of  conscience,  or  pre- 
sentiment of  penalty,  according  to  the  confession  of 
all  great  literature  and  philosophy,  makes  cowards 
of  us  all ; 

17.  That  it  forbodes  punishment,  not  only  in  this 
life,  but  in  time  to  come  beyond  death. 

To  and  fro  behind  the  veil,  conscience,  in  anticipation, 
paces  up  and  down,  oftener  than  over  any  path  in  this 


154  ORTHODOXY. 

life.  It  would  not  thus  by  organic  instinct  pace  up  and 
down  behind  the  veil,  if  there  were  nothing  there.  Did 
we  anticipate  nothing  behind  the  veil,  conscience 
could  not  make  cowards  of  us  all ;  for  death  would  be 
release. 

18.  Xhis  foreboding  has  done  as  much  work  in  the 
history  of  religion  among  men  as  any  other  instinct, 
and  thus  has  proved  its  strength. 

19.  The  foreboding  does  not  cease  when  we  become 
free  from  the  love  of  sin. 

Remember  Lady  Macbeth's  fruitless  use  of  water : 
look  back  to  my  schoolmate. 

When  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  of  his  pursuers  were 
rattling  after  him  on  the  old  Roman  pavements,  Nero 
caused  himself  to  be  put  to  death :  he  passed  out  of 
the  world  by  virtual  suicide ;  and  history  says  that 
his  look  was  not  a  look,  but  a  glare.  He  had  not 
been  misled  by  a  Christian  education.  A  distin- 
guished infidel  had  troubles  of  conscience;  but  he 
attributed  them  to  a  nervous  shock  he  received  in  his 
youth.  Nero  did  not  receive  any  nervous  shock  in 
his  youth ;  Caligula  did  not.  Boston  may  probably 
have  men  in  it  who  never  had  a  nervous  shock  in 
youth,  but  who  have  illustrated  all  the  great  laws  of 
conscience,  and  who  have  been  made  afraid  before  a 
Somewhat  or  a  Some  One  in  whom  it  has  been  said 
there  is  nothing  to  fear.  "  Since  I  was  seven  years 
old,"  Parker  affirmed,  "  I  have  had  no  fear  of  God." 

20.  It  is  a  scientifically  verifiable   fact  of  expe- 
rience, therefore,  that  the  absence  of  the  love  of  sin 
in  the  present  does  not  bring  us  to  peace  when  we 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    155 

vividly  and  thoughtfully  recall  our  record  of  sin  in 
the  past,  and  allow  our  native  instincts  free  course. 

21.  It  is  self-evident  that  personal  ill-desert  cannot 
be  removed  from  person  to  person. 

What !  —  sin  not  taken  off  us,  and  put  upon  our 
Lord?  our  guilt  not  borne  by  our  Saviour?  No;  not 
in  the  sense  in  which  you  understand  guilt.  Blame- 
worthiness  is  not  transferred  from  us  to  him,  and  can- 
not be.  We  know  that  our  Lord  had  no  sin,  and  that 
there  can  be  no  removing  of  personal  ill-desert  from 
one  personality,  and  putting  it  upon  another.  That 
word  "guilt"  is  a  fog,  unless  you  remember  that 
behind  it  lie  two  meanings. 

22.  Guilt  signifies,  first,  personal  blameworthiness ; 
second,  liableness  to  suffer  in  order  to  preserve  the 
honor  of  a  violated  law. 

In  the  former  sense  guilt  cannot  be  transferred 
from  person  to  person :  in  the  latter  it  can  be.  Our 
Lord  is  no  murderer,  no  perjurer.  There  is  no  diver- 
gence of  theological  opinion  from  self-evident  truth 
when  self-evident  truth  declares  that  personal  de- 
merit is  not  transferable  from  personality  to  person- 
ality. Ghastliest  of  all  misconceptions  ever  put  be- 
fore this  city  or  any  other  is  the  assertion  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement  implies, — first,  that  an 
innocent  being  is  made  guilty  in  the  sense  of  being 
personally  blameworthy ;  and,  secondly,  that  that  in- 
nocent being  is  punished  in  the  sense  of  suffering 
pain  for  personal  ill-desert.  Both  these  propositions 
all  clear  thought  discards,  all  religious  science  con- 
demns. We  have  no  doctrine  of  the  Atonement 


156  ORTHODOXY. 

which  declares  that  personal  demerit  is  laid  upon  our 
Lord,  or  that,  in.  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  he  suf- 
fered punishment ;  that  is,  pain  inflicted  for  personal 
blameworthiness.  He  had  no  personal  blameworthi- 
ness :  he  was  an  innocent  being,  as  he  always  will  be, 
and  never  did,  can,  or  will  suffer  punishment  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word. 

23.  Guilt  in  the  second  sense,  or  liability  to  suffer- 
ing in  order  to  preserve  the  honor  of  a  violated  law, 
may  be  removed  when  the  author  of  the  law  sub- 
stitutes his  own  voluntary  sacrificial  chastisement  for 
our  punishment. 

24.  When  such  a  substitution  is  made,  the  highest 
possible  motives  to  loyalty  to  that  Ruler  are  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  rebellious  subject. 

25.  If  any  great  arrangement  on  this  principle  has 
been  made  by  the  Father,  Redeemer,  and  Sanctifier  of 
the  universe,  that  arrangement  meets  with  exactness 
the  deepest  wants  of  man.     It  is  the  highest  possible 
dissuasive  from  the  love  of  sin :  it  is  the  only  possi- 
ble deliverance  from  the  guilt  of  sin,  in  the  sense, 
not  of  personal  blameworthiness,  but  of  liability  to 
suffering  in  order  to  preserve  the  honor  of  the  vio- 
lated law,  which  says  "•  I  ought." 

26.  Such  a  great  arrangement  may,  therefore,  with 
scientific  exactness,  be  known  to  be  needed,  and  so  needed 
as  to  be  catted  property  the  desire  of  all  nations. 

27.  The   Atonement   which  reason   can  prove  is 
needed  Revelation  declares  has  been  made. 

On  the"  slope  of  Beacon  Hill,  a  New-England  author, 
who  ought  always  to  be  named  side  by  side  with 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    157 

Pestalozzi,  once  made  it  a  rule,  in  a  school  full  of 
subtile  thought,  that,  if  a  pupil  violated  its  regula- 
tions, the  master  should  substitute  his  own  voluntary 
sacrificial  chastisement  for  that  pupil's  punishment. 
Bronson  Alcott  will  allow  me  to  say  here  and  now, 
in  his  presence,  that  he  has  told  me  that  this  one  reg- 
ulation almost  Christianized  his  school.  The  pupils 
were  quite  young,  and  for  that  reason  the  measure 
was  effective  among  them.  He  was  no  dreamer.  He 
would  never  have  adopted  this  measure  except  with 
the  sensitive.  Nevertheless,  the  operation  of  these 
untutored,  hardly  unfolded,  and  therefore  spontane- 
ously natural  hearts,  indicates  what  man  is.  "  One 
day,"  says  Bronson  Alcott,  "  I  called  up  before  me 
a  pupil  eight  or  ten  years  of  age,  who  had  violated 
an  important  regulation  of  the  school.  All  the 
pupils  were  looking  on,  and  they  knew  what  the  rule 
of  the  school  was.  I  put  the  ruler  into  the  hand  of 
that  offending  pupil;  I  extended  my  hand;  I  told 
him  to  strike.  The  instant  the  boy  saw  my  extended 
hand,  and  heard  my  command  to  strike,  I  saw  a 
struggle  begin  in  his  face.  A  new  light  sprang  up 
in  his  countenance.  A  new  set  of  shuttles  seemed 
to  be  weaving  a  new  nature  within  him.  I  kept  my 
hand  extended,  and  the  school  was  in  tears.  The 
boy  struck  once,  and  he  himself  burst  into  tears ;  and 
I  constantly  watched  his  face,  and  he  seemed  in  a 
bath  of  fire,  which  was  giving  him  a  new  nature. 
He  had  a  different  mood  toward  the  school  and 
toward  the  violated  law.  The  boy  seemed  trans- 
formed by  the  idea  that  I  should  take  chastisement; 


158  ORTHODOXY. 

in  place  of  his  punishment.  He  went  back  to  his 
seat,  and  ever  after  was  one  of  the  most  docile  of 
all  the  pupils  in  that  school,  although  he  had  been 
at  first  one  of  the  rudest."  My  friends,  you  know 
that  I  believe  that  law  is  a  unit  throughout  the 
whole  extent  of  time  and  space,  and  that,  if  you  can 
measure  a  little  arc  of  the  moral  law  as  exhibited 
in  this  school  of  the  Concord  philosopher,  you  will 
obtain  some  glimpse  of  the  principle  on  which  the 
Atonement  operates. 

28.  The  definition  of  the  Atonement  is,  the  substi- 
tution of  the  voluntary  sacrificial  chastisement  of 
Christ  for  man's  punishment. 

Why  do  I  make  a  distinction  between  chastisement 
and  punishment?  Because  facts  require  me  to  do 
so.  In  this  example  was  Bronson  Alcott  punished  ? 
Not  at  all.  Was  Bronson  Alcott  guilty  ?  Not  at  all. 
Was  the  personal  demerit  of  that  pupil  transferred  to 
Bronson  Alcott?  Not  at  all.  Such  transference  of 
personal  demerit  is  an  impossibility  in  the  nature 
of  things.  Nevertheless,  we  have  in  Boston  a  school 
of  theology  and  preaching,  and  a  wide  range  of  pop- 
ular sentiment,  which  regards  Christianity  as  teaching, 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  a  self-contradiction, 
an  absurdity ;  namely,  the  idea  that  personal  demerit 
is  transferred  from  one  individual  to  another. 

James  Martineau  says  that  the  idea  of  a  vicarious 
Atonement  is  abhorrent  to  him,  because  it  includes 
the  idea  that  Christ,  an  innocent  being,  was  punished. 
I  wish  to  admit  that  Orthodoxy  has  been  careless  iu 
her  phrases  again  and  again.  I  do  not  know  how 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    159 

many  have  been  thrown  into  the  lawless  license  of 
liberalism  by  that  misconception  of  the  Atonement 
which  asserts  that  in  it  an  innocent  being  was  pun- 
ished, and  personal  demerit  was  transferred.  But  law 
is  one  through  the  universe ;  and  I  have  a  perfect 
right  to  stand  on  this  example  of  Alcott's  school.  I 
affirm  that  you  know  perfectly  well  that  Bronson 
Alcott,  in  the  strict  sense,  did  not  suffer  punishment. 
He  was  innocent.  What  did  happen  ?  Bronson  Alcott 
voluntarily  accepted  chastisement,  not  punishment. 
What  is  the  definition  of  punishment?  Pain  inflict- 
ed for  personal  blameworthiness.  What  is  chastise- 
ment? Pain  suffered  for  the  improvement  of  the 
one  who  suffers  it,  or  for  the  benefit  of  those  who 
witness  it.  Does  the  latter  imply  guilt  ?  Not  at  all. 
A  mother  has  a  vicious  son,  and  she  has  done  her  duty 
by  him,  let  us  suppose.  She  has  no  remorse ;  for  I 
assume  she  is  free  from  all  guilt  for  her  son's  bad 
habits ;  but  she  suffers  terribly.  Is  that  pain  punish- 
ment ?  No,  chastisement.  We  must  make  this  dis- 
tinction, in  Boston  at  least,  where  so  long  the  carica- 
ture has  been  placarded  on  the  highest  walls,  assert- 
ing, that,  in  the  Atonement,  punishment  is  inflicted  on 
an  innocent  being,  and  personal  demerit  transferred. 
I  never  was  taught  that  Christ  suffered  punishment. 
I  had  to  learn  out  of  books  that  any  one  made  it  an 
objection  to  Christianity  that  an  innocent  being  was 
punished.  If  religious  science  will  begin  the  fashion, 
and  never  use  a  term  of  importance  without  defining 
it,  I  for  one  will  try  to  keep  step  with  that  fashion  as 
one  of  the  most  blessed  of  all  modern  improvements, 


160  ORTHODOXY. 

and  one  I  should  like,  by  the  contagion  of  general  ac- 
ceptance, to  force  upon  all  who  differ  from  Chris- 
tian views.  In  denning  saving  faith  we  must  dis- 
tinguish chastisement  from  punishment :  the  chas- 
tisement of  our  offences  was  laid  upon  our  Lord.  It 
is  nowhere  presumed  in  the  Scriptures  that  personal 
demerit  can  be  transferred  from  individuality  to  in- 
dividuality. 

What  happened  further  in  the  school?  Suppose 
that  boy  had  been  called  up  and  punished  a  second 
time,  after  the  master  had  been  chastised,  would  that 
have  been  right  ?  Would  the  school  have  said  that 
was  right?  The  master  has  accepted  chastisement 
voluntarily ;  and  now  you  cannot  call  that  boy  up, 
and  punish  him  a  second  time.  The  school  would 
say  that  is  wrong.  It  is  against  all  human  nature  to 
do  that.  Why  ?  Because  justice  is  satisfied  ?  No ; 
but  because  it  has  been  sufficiently  honored.  Dis- 
tributive justice  is  waived,  while  general  justice  is 
satisfied.  What  has  the  master  done?  He  has  so 
substituted  his  own  chastisement  for  the  pupil's  pun- 
ishment as  to  remove  the  liableness  of  the  pupil  to 
suffer  in  order  to  preserve  the  honor  of  the  law  of 
the  school.  But  the  master  is  not  to  blame?  No. 
The  master  has  not  been  punished  ?  No.  Assuredly 
this  case,  on  the  human  side,  looks  intelligible :  I 
think  I  can  understand  that  side.  But  do  you  mean 
to  say  that  in  the  arc  of  that  little  example  are  in- 
volved principles  that  sweep  the  whole  curve  of  the 
Atonement,  or  show  in  part  how  God's  chastisement 
was  substituted  for  our  punishment  ?  Yes,  by  more 
than  a  glimpse  ;  for  law  is  the  same  everywhere. 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    161 

The  master  paid  the  debt  of  that  boy,  you  say.  He 
did  not  pay  it  in  the  sense  of  removing  the  pupil's 
ill-desert,  but  only  in  that  of  removing  his  liableness 
to  suffer  to  preserve  the  honor  of  the  law  of  the 
school.  The  illustration  is,  of  course,  imperfect  on 
many  points ;  but  on  a  few  it  is  serviceable,  and  I 
present  it  only  to  throw  light  on  these.  It  is  perfectly 
clear  that  the  pupil  by  his  own  act  made  himself  liable 
to  suffer  in  order  to  preserve  the  honor  of  the  law  he 
violated.  If  that  liableness  was  to  be  removed,  it 
was  necessary  something  should  be  done;  and  the 
school  would  have  gone  to  ruin  if  nothing  had  been 
done  to  preserve  the  honor  of  its  law.  I  understand 
perfectly,  too,  that,  when  this  boy  goes  back,  a  motive 
has  been  brought  to  bear  on  him  that  will  transform 
him,  if  any  thing  can.  Nothing  can  take  hold  of 
human  nature  like  such  condescension,  justice,  and 
love. 

Would  the  boy  have  acted  so  if  he  had  been  a 
Greek  boy?  Any  sensitive  free  being,  man  or 
angel,  would  have  been  affected  as  that  boy  was  by 
the  command  to  substitute  the  chastisement  of  the 
master  for  his  own  punishment.  A  new  set  of 
shuttles  would  have  sprung  into  action  in  an  Esquimau 
or  a  Greek  boy  in  a  similar  case.  I  have  seen  a 
Greek  boy  whirl  his  top  among  the  ruins  of  the 
Parthenon,  and  the  Roman  boy  his  top  upon  the  old 
pavements  that  the  chariot-wheels  of  Caesar  had 
scarred ;  and  I  think  that  any  boy  from  any  quarter 
of  the  globe  would  have  felt,  in  the  case  supposed, 
that  the  master  had  not  lowered  the  dignity  of  the 


162  ORTHODOXY. 

law  of  the  school  at  all ;  that  the  law  which  had  been 
violated  had  not  been  treated  lightly ;  and  that,  if 
this  boy  wanted  motives  for  loyalty,  what  he  would 
need  to  do  would  be  to  remember  vividly  the  chastise- 
ment of  his  master  in  place  of  his  own  punishment. 
In  the  case  of  that  scholar,  guilt  meant  two  things, 
—  first,  his  own  personal  blameworthiness ;  second,  his 
liability  to  suffer  to  preserve  the  honor  and  vindicate 
the  authority  of  the  law  of  the  school.  Now,  guilt  in 
the  first  sense  never  is  removed  (HODGE'S  Theology, 
passim).  It  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  that 
personal  demerit  is  taken  off  a  man  by  saving  faith. 
It  was  always  true  of  that  scholar  that  he  violated  the 
law.  His  personal  demerit  had  not  been  transferred 
to  Bronson  Alcott  at  all.  The  record  of  rebellion  is 
always  behind  that  boy.  Only  his  liableness  to  suf- 
fering for  the  preservation  of  the  honor  of  the  law  of 
the  school  has  been  removed.  That  latter  sense  of 
guilt  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  when  we  say  the 
Atonement  removes  man's  guilt.  It  is  scientifically 
certain  that,  in  the  sense  of  removing  this  lidbleness, 
Bronson  Alcott  had  power  to  pay  the  debt  which  that 
boy  owed,  and  that  he  paid  it  by  substituting  his  own 
chastisement  for  that  boy's  punishment.  That  is  a 
straightforward,  plain  case,  and  you  can  teach  any 
honest  man  to  see  that  distinction.  Hereafter,  when 
scepticism  with  its  long-eared  hallelujahs  comes  to 
you,  and  says  that  the  Atonement  is  a  doctrine  out- 
grown by  all  clear  thought,  because  it  teaches  that 
an  innocent  being  was  punished,  and  that  personal 
demerit  was  transferred  from  one  individual  to 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    163 

another,  and  that  therefore  advanced  thought  must 
abandon  the  central  idea  of  Christian  culture  as 
plainly  barbaric,  the  result  of  some  Platonic  inter- 
fusion of  thought  in  the  early  centuries,  or  some 
heathenish  inheritance  from  Judaism,  in  short,  that 
this  scheme  is  self-contradictory,  or  at  war  with 
axiomatic  truth,  please  ask  that  singer  of  empty 
anthems  to  be  clear  himself;  to  state  what  he  would 
say  in  a  human  case  such  as  I  have  supposed ;  and 
then  whether  he  dare  affirm,  in  the  name  of  the  unity 
of  law,  which  he  proclaims  as  the  first  truth  of  science, 
that,  if  there  has  been  any  such  Atonement  made  in 
the  universe,  it  is  not  what  we  infinitely  need. 

My  friends,  exact  and  cool  science  knows  with  pre- 
cision that  we  want  just  this  more  than  unspeakably, 
if  any  thing  like  this  has  been  done  for  us.  We  want 
it  first,  to  pay  our  debt  to  the  school  of  the  universe, 
in  the  sense  of  removing  liableness  to  suffering  to 
preserve  the  honor  of  violated  law ;  and,  next,  to 
give  us  immeasurable  motives  to  loyalty.  There  is 
surely  nothing  that  really  changes  the  heart  so  quick- 
ly as  a  sight  of  this  substitution  of  chastisement  for 
punishment,  whether  it  be  in  the  human  case  of  a 
school,  or  in  the  revealed  case  of  the  school  of  the 
universe.  Lift  this  feeling  of  the  poor  boy  into 
all  the  dignity  it  naturally  assumes  when  you  take 
it  as  a  type  of  the  moral  law,  a  unit  throughout  the 
universe ;  lift  that  law  until  the  arc  we  can  measure 
has  become  the  segment  of  a  circle  large  enough 
to  reach  from  here  to  the  galaxies ;  and  then  let  all 
the  constellations  shine  on  the  circle  as  you  carry 


164  ORTHODOXY. 

its  line  far  past  the  spot  over  which  Bootes  is  driv- 
ing his  hunting-dogs  in  their  leash  of  sidereal  fire; 
carry  on  that  arc  until  stars  fade  out,  and  galaxies, 
and  all  the  infinities  and  eternities  of  time  past  and 
time  to  come  are  embraced  within  it,  and  then  what 
have  you  ?  One  little  point  of  light  —  the  whole  of 
it  is  no  more — to  hold  up  before  the  noon  of  Christ's 
chastisement  substituted  for  man's  punishment. 

You  wish  to  be  born  anew  ?  Look  on  the  Cross. 
You  wish  to  take  God  gladly  as  your  Lord  ?  Look 
on  him  as  your  Saviour.  You  wish  to  drop  all  the 
heart-burdens  of  slavishness,  and  you  desire  to  come 
into  the  obedience  of  delight  ?  Look  on  the  Cross. 
You  want  glad  allegiance  to  God  as  King  ?  Look  on 
the  Cross.  There  is  nothing  that  frees  us  from  the 
love  of  sin  like  looking  on  Him  who  has  delivered  us 
from  the  guilt  of  it. 

Speaking  philosophically,  addressing  you  in  the 
mood  of  cool  precision,  I  affirm,  that  if  the  great 
things  man  wants  are  riddance  from  the  love  of 
sin,  and  deliverance  from  the  guilt  of  it,  we  can 
obtain  the  first  best,  and  the  latter  only,  by  looking 
on  the  Cross.  Those  old  words  have  unfathomable 
depth ;  and  he  who  is  to  be  born  anew  must  sit 
beside  that  pupil  in  Bronson  Alcott's  school,  must 
imagine  the  benches  to  be  the  galaxies,  and  his  hu- 
man companions  the  angels  and  archangels  who  bow 
down  on  the  golden  floor,  and  on  the  shore  of  the 
sea  of  glass,  and  in  presence  of  the  Great  White 
Throne,  and  cry  out,  "  Holy,  holy,  holy  Lord  God 
Almighty ;  thou  art  worthy,  for  thou  didst  so  love 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  SELF-EVIDENT  TRUTH.    165 

the  world  that  thou  gavest  thine  only-begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  on  him  should  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life." 

May  I  summarize  the  scientific  truths  contained  in 
this  discussion  by  asserting,  in  the  name  of  the 
axioms  of  the  nature  of  things,  that  it  is  clear  ?  — 

1.  That  the  master  of  that  school  was  not  guilty. 

2.  That  he  suffered,  in  the  strict  sense,  not  pun- 
ishment, but  chastisement. 

3.  That  he  had  power  to  remove  from  the  pupil 
the  liability  to  suffer  to  preserve  the  honor  of  the  law 
of  the  school. 

4.  That  the  pupil's  peace  before   the  law  of  the 
school  is   the   result  not  of  his  own  work,  but  of 
the  master's  work;  and  not   of  the  master's   moral 
influence  and  general   character  merely,  but  of  his 
substitution  of  chastisement  for  punishment. 

5.  That,  nevertheless,  the  pupil  must  be  loyal  to 
the  master,  and  thus,  though  not  saved  by  works, 
cannot  be  saved  without  works. 

6.  That  it  is  not  simply  the  moral  influence,  or 
character  and  general  example,  of  the  master  which 
transforms  the  boy  into  the  mood  of  loyalty. 

7.  But  that  this  substitution  of  voluntary  sacrifi- 
cial chastisement  for  punishment  is  the  force  which 
throws  the  shuttles  that  weave  a  new  character  in 
the    soul    thus    delivered    from    punishment;    and 
that  although  the  record  of  disobedience  cannot  be 
changed,  and  must  be  remembered  with  regret,  such 
memory,  when  loyalty  is  once  made  so  perfect  in  love 
and  trust  as  to  cast  out  fear,  will  be  but  a  spur  to 


166  OKTHODOXY. 

adoration  of  the  condescension  shown  to  the  released 
soul ;  and,  in  the  multitudinous  anthem  of  its  grati- 
tude, this  shadow  on  the  sea  of  glass  will,  for  that 
spirit  only,  be  by  contrast  an  enchantment  of  the 
glory  of  the  light  on  the  sea  of  glass.  [Applause.] 

On  a  summer  evening,  it  has  often  been  to  me,  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  a  solemn  joy  to  lie  down 
alone  at  a  grove's  edge  by  the  side  of  the  ocean,  and 
look  into  the  infinite  azure  until  the  stars  appear. 
In  the  rustle  of  the  grove,  one  may  hear  thus  all  the 
forests  of  all  the  zones  of  the  thrifty,  jubilant,  wheel- 
ing world;  the  soul  may  touch  all  shores  with  the 
howling,  salt,  uneasy  sea.  As  the  stars  come  out,  I 
love  to  lift  above  my  thoughts  Richter's  apologue, 
which  represents  an  angel  as  once  catching  a  man  up 
into  the  infinite  of  space,  and  moving  with  him  from 
galaxy  to  galaxy,  until  the  human  heart  fainted,  and 
called  out,  "End  is  there  none  of  the  universe  of 
God  ?  "  And  the  constellations  answered,  "  End  is 
there  none  that  ever  yet  we  heard  of."  Again  the 
angel  flew  on  with  the  man  past  immeasurable  archi- 
traves, and  immensity  after  immensity,  sown  with 
rushing  worlds ;  and  the  human  heart  fainted  again, 
and  cried  out,  "End  is  there  none  of  the  universe 
of  God  ?  "  And  the  angel  answered,  "  End  is  there 
none  of  the  universe  of  God :  lo  !  also,  there  is  no 
beginning."  But  if,  while  I,  thus  entranced,  look 
into  the  sky,  you  bring  above  my  gaze  the  page  of 
the  gospel  recording  the  fact  of  the  Atonement,  all 
other  revelations  of  the  divine  glory  appear  in  con- 
trast but  chaff  and  dust. 


VI. 


THE  HAKMONIZATION  OF  THE  SOUL  WITH  ITS 
ENVIKONMENT, 

THE   SEVENTY-FIFTH  LECTURE   IN   THE  BOSTON   MONDAY  LEC- 
TURESHIP,   DELIVERED  IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE   APRIL  23. 


"Inter  bonos  viros  ac  Deum  amicitia  est,  conciliante  virtute: 
amicitiam  dico?  immo  etiam  necessitudo  et  similitude.  —  SENECA: 
De  Provid.,  I. 

"Et  metus  ille  foras  prseceps  Acheruntis  agendus, 
Funditus  humanam  qui  vitam  turbat  ab  irno, 
Omnia  suffundens  mortis  nigrore,  neque  ullam 
Ease  voluptatem  liquidam  puramque  relinquit." 

LUCRETIUS:  lib.  iii.  37. 


VI. 

THE  HARMONIZATION   OF  THE  SOUL 
WITH  ITS  ENVIRONMENT. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

SUPPOSE  that  I  have  here  in  one  hand  a  goblet 
filled  with  alcohol,  and  in  the  other  a  spoon  containing 
the  white  of  an  egg,  and  that  I  turn  the  egg'out  into 
the  alcohol.  What  has  science  to  say  about  moderate 
drinking?  Precisely  what  this  experiment  proves. 
The  albuminous  substance  in  the  white  of  the  egg  is 
hardened  by  the  action  of  the  liquid,  and  so  hardened, 
that,  if  I  could  have  put  the  egg  in  round,  it  would 
have  been  fixed  in  that  shape,  with  such  a  degree  of 
firmness  as  to  permit  me  to  roll  it  across  this  platform. 
All  glue-like  or  colloid  substances,  as  your  books  say, 
are  hardened  by  alcohol,  because  they  contain  a  large 
percentage  of  water ;  and  we  know  that  alcohol  is 
as  thirsty  for  water  as  ever  an  inebriate  is  for  alco- 
hol. But  the  brain  and  the  nerves  contain  a  great 
amount  of  this  same  colloidal  or  glue-like  substance. 
Drench  the  blood  with  alcohol,  and  you  harden  the 
brain,  as  I  have  hardened  this  egg  in  the  goblet. 
The  very  latest  investigation  begins  to -speak  hi  tones 

169 


170  ORTHODOXY. 

of  great  emphasis  against  moderate  drinking,  and 
this  in  the  name  of  the  natural  effect  of  alcohol  in 
hardening  all  the  glue-like  substances  of  the  body. 

We  say  that  the  heart  beats  faster  when  we  in- 
dulge moderately  in  the  use  of  intoxicating  bever- 
ages, and  that  a  cheerful  flush  comes  to  the  face. 
But  perpetual  health  is  a  perpetual  intoxication. 
I  had  rather  have  the  flush  that  our  Anglo-Saxon 
ancestry  gave  us,  and  that  we  should  keep  if  we 
loved  the  open  sky  as  they  did,  or  even  open  win- 
dows, as  Charles  Kingsley  or  Victor  Hugo  advise  us 
to  do,  than  any  flush  which  comes,  as  alcohol  brings 
it,  by  relaxing  the  nerve-fibres  in  the  circulatory  ves- 
sels. The  quickening  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
by  alcoholic  stimulants  was  never  quite  understood 
until  within  the  last  twenty  years,  and  perhaps  not 
fully  until  within  ten  years.  What  makes  the  heart 
beat  faster  after  moderate  drinking?  Is  this  has- 
tened action  a  good  effect  or  a  bad  ?  Is  it  disease,  or 
is  it  the  invigoration  of  the  normal  activity  of  the 
system?  Suppose  that  I  have  here  a  steam-engine 
with  India-rubber  pipes.  Around  the  pipes  are  deli- 
cate fibres  constricting  them,  but  liable  to  melt  when- 
ever the  temperature  of  the  room  rises  above  a 
certain  point.  It  is  very  evident,  that,  if  I  were  to 
raise  the  temperature  of  the  room  to  such  a  degree 
as  to  melt  all  these  little  constricting  fibres  from 
the  India-rubber  pipes  of  this  steam-engine,  the 
moment  they  were  melted,  or  relaxed,  the  engine, 
without  any  more  fire  in  its  furnaces,  would  begin 
to  move  faster.  Why?  Because,  by  the  melting 


THE   SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  171 

of  the  delicate  fibres  around  the  India-rubber  pipes, 
the  latter  have  themselves  become  relaxed,  and  so 
there  is  evidently  less  friction  for  the  rushing  steam 
to  meet ;  and  therefore,  without  any  increased  force 
or  fire,  you  would  have  a  quickening  of  the  ac- 
tion of  the  engine.  Would  that  result  be  an  im- 
provement of  the  normal  conditions  of  the  machin- 
ery? Not  at  all.  It  would  be  an  indication  of  a 
disarrangement.  Just  so  in  the  human  system.  We 
have  now  learned  that  even  moderate  drinking,  in 
ninety  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  temporarily  paralyzes 
the  nerves  that  govern  tjie  minute  muscles  that  hold 
the  arteries  and  the  veins  in  proper  tension.  This 
injury  of  the  finest  nerves  allows  the  circulatory 
system  to  become  relaxed,  and  so  the  heart  beats 
faster ;  but  there  is  no  more  force  in  the  heart.  The 
whole  effect  is  like  the  acceleration  produced  in  the 
motions  of  a  watch  when  you  take  the  pallets  off 
the  machinery.  Dr.  Richardson,  fellow  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians,  has  lately  told  us  in  his  "  Can- 
tor Lectures  on  Alcohol,"  a  work  introduced  to  Amer- 
ica by  Dr.  Willard  Parker,  that  "  alcohol  paralyzes 
the  minute  blood-vessels,  and  allows  them  to  become 
dilated.  The  dilatation  follows  on  the  reduction  of 
nervous  control,  which  reduction  has  been  induced 
by  alcohol  "  (Lecture  iii.).  Therefore  there  is  a 
flush  in  the  face ;  and  not  only  there,  but  the  flush 
pervades  the  entire  system,  and  especially  the  brain, 
for  which  everybody  knows  that  alcohol  has  a  pecu- 
liar local  affinity. 

Go  to  the  Hunterian  Museum  in  London,  and  men 


172  ORTHODOXY. 

will  show  you  skeletons  of  two  lions,  both  poisoned 
and  with  the  same  kind  of  poison.  There  is  a  mark 
on  these  skeletons  at  the  point  where  that  poison  ex- 
pended its  chief  force.  All  physicians  know  that 
poisons  have  a  local  action  within  the  system,  and 
that  sometimes  a  rifle-ball  has  no  more  definite  point 
of  impingement  upon  whatever  it  is  aimed  at  than  a 
poison  has  in  relation  to  the  object  against  the  wel- 
fare of  which  it  is  directed.  We  must  remember 
that  the  special  local  affinity  of  alcohol  is  for  the 
brain ;  that  the  relaxing  of  the  fibres  which  allows 
the  heart  to  beat  faster  is  not  a  sign  of  health, 
but  of  disease ;  and  that  the  moderate  drinker,  in 
ninety  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  is  thus  honeycombed 
through  and  through  by  this  relaxation.  Its  ef- 
fects are  seen  first  in  a  lack  of  moral  feeling.  But 
when  fever  strikes  him  down,  when  cholera  attacks 
him,  when  sun's  heat  and  life's  struggle  come  to- 
gether, he  breaks  more  easily  than  he  otherwise 
would.  In  your  remaining  ten  cases,  perhaps,  there 
may  be  apparent  immunity  for  a  while :  but  in  old 
age  a  man  is  more  brittle  than  he  would  be  other- 
wise ;  and  in  the  next  generation  what  do  you  get  ? 
Why,  when  there  is  a  confirmed  and  inveterate  habit 
of  wine-drinking,  or  other  habitual  and  prolonged 
although  moderate  alcoholic  stimulation,  the  succes- 
sion of  generations  differs  in  character  usually  not 
very  far  from  what  it  was  in  Webster's  family,  — 
colossal  strength  in  the  father  of  Webster,  colossal 
strength  in  Webster,  erratic  strength  in  the  son, 
lack  of  control  in  the  grandson,  —  a  boy  who  made 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  173 

of  his  grandfather's  amusements  his  whole  occupa- 
tion ;  and  what  the  next  generation  would  have  been, 
the  law  of  hereditary  descent  will  tell  you.  Inex- 
haustible strength,  eccentricity,  moral  weakness,  and 
then  the  condition  which  your  "  Atlantic  Monthly," 
choice  about  its  language,  describes  by  the  adjective 
"spooney."  Even  giants  may  deteriorate  to  this 
stage  in  four  generations. 

Mr.  Gough,  who  used  to  be  paid  nine  dollars  for 
three  lectures,  has  lately  made  us  all  his  debtors  by  a 
plea,  in  Christ's  name,  against  moderate  drinking. 
The  Light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into* 
the  world  is  shining  now  more  intensely  than  in  any 
previous  century  on  the  physical  deteriorations  that 
come  from  coarse  bodily  habits.  On  all  the  physical 
vices  God  is  throwing  the  progress  of  the  sciences,  as 
we  throw  spadesful  of  earth  on  a  coffin.  "  Apples  of 
Sodom,"  "  Circe's  Enchantment,"  was  the  ancient  lan- 
guage about  all  the  physical  vices ;  but  the  microscope 
and  the  scalpel  are  revealing  to  us,  in  characters  of 
fire,  the  depth  of  those  old  metaphors.  Physical 
vices  are  overrated,  and,  if  exact  science  had  her 
way,  would  be  outgrown  by  all  but  the  dissipated, 
who  are  always  the  dizzy-pated. 

Christianity  so  values  the  body,  that  a  Holy  Sep- 
ulchre, where  once  an  angel  sat  at  the  head,  and 
another  angel  at  the  feet,  not  of  a  body,  but  of  a 
place  where  a  body  had  lain,  drew  to  it  all  Europe 
in  crusade  after  crusade,  making  the  Italian  cities 
rich,  founding  the  Hanse  towns,  wrenching  liberty 
for  the  municipal  classes  out  of  the  gripe  of  nobles, 


174  ORTHODOXY. 

and  so,  in  ultimate  result,  writing  Magna  Charta  and 
the  American  Constitution.  It  is  historically  true 
to  say  that  the  crusades  put  the  ballot  in  the  poor 
man's  hand,  or  began  liberty;  and  they  were  in 
great  measure  the  outcome  of  the  reverence  of  Chris- 
tianity for  the  incontrovertible  fact  that  a  physical 
frame  had  been  the  supreme  human  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

In  a  similar  spirit  she  and  she  only  has  for  ages 
effectively  taught  what  science  at  last  proclaims, 
that,  if  any  man  defile  the  temple  of  God,  him  shall 
God  destroy ;  for  the  temple  of  God  is  holy,  which 
temple  ye  are.  It  is  a  small  sneer  of  scepticism 
that  Christianity  cares  nothing  for  the  flesh.  Only 
she  glorifies  it.  Only  Christianity  makes  the  home 
possible.  Mr.  Seward  came  back  from  a  tour  around 
the  world;  and  the  shrewdest  thing  he  said  about 
Asia  was,  "  In  all  the  East  there  is  not  a  home." 

In  Athens,  one  night,  walking  to  the  south-east  cor- 
ner of  the  Acropolis,  I  looked  down  upon  the  great 
Dionysic  Theatre,  uncovered  in  1862  by  Hof  baurath 
Strack's  German  shovels.  Some  of  the  marble  chairs, 
a  few  of  the  statues,  half  the  seats,  a  multitude  of  the 
inscriptions,  are  still  in  their  places.  On  one  of  the 
white  thrones  there  is  a  lion's  foot,  with  the  tip  of 
the  claw  yet  savagely  sharp,  sculptured,  perhaps,  in 
Hadrian's  time.  Socrates  once  ironically  commended 
Agathon,  a  poet,  for  having  exhibited  his  wisdom  in 
this  theatre,  or,  at  least,  at  this  place,  before  thirty 
thousand  spectators.  Fully  twenty  thousand  or 
thirty  thousand  people  were  accustomed  to  assem- 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVTRONMENT.  175 

ble  at  dawn  here,  in  a  semicircle  cut  in  the 
slope  of  the  Acropolis,  and  to  listen  to  tragedies, 
the  voice  of  which  even  now,  as  we  read  them, 
is  to  the  ear  of  thought  a  majestic  philosophical  or 
theological  anthem.  .JSschylus  and  Sophocles  and 
Euripides  so  taught  ethics  and  religion,  that  the  stage 
in  the  ancient  Athenian  democracy  must  be  compared 
to  the  pulpit  in  modern  times.  Never  was  it  the 
frivolous  and  sometimes  filthy  thing  which  is  to-day 
called  a  theatre.  Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Parthe- 
non, and  of  Minerva  herself,  the  free  people  sat  down, 
as  ./Eschylus  says,  "under  the  wings  of  gods." 
Along  the  beach  at  Phalerum,  where  Demosthenes 
declaimed  to  the  waves,  and  beneath  the  sharp  hills 
of  jiEgina  and  Salamis,  the  blue  sea  palpitated  before 
the  spectators.  •  The  chief  part  of  the  Ilissus  plain, 
Mount  Hymettus,  the  ancient  Agora  and  Pnyx,  and 
numberless  temples,  were  in  view :  above  the  unroofed 
amphitheatre  hung  the  infinite  depth  of  the  mysteri- 
ously soft  and  bright  sky  of  Greece.  Subtle  allusions 
to  this  outlook,  abounding  in  Euripides,  ^Eschylus, 
and  Sophocles,  prove  curiously  in  detail,  that  here 
Greek  poetry,  in  the  early  spring  mornings,  found 
earth,  sea,  sky,  and  historic  monuments  a  most  organ- 
izing inspiration,  and  fit  to  match  an  audience  com- 
posed of  all  that  was  then  the  most  brilliant  in  the 
world. 

Such  was  the  theatre  in  ancient  Athens.  Would 
Euripides  think  it  better  than  this  in  the  modern 
Athens  ?  Does  the  classic  drama  flourish  here,  or  in 
New  York,  or  in  Chicago  ?  Is  not  the  low  always 


176  ORTHODOXY. 

the  slow  aesthetically  ?  But  is  the  low  always  the 
slow  financially  ?  The  abler  portion  of  your  secular 
press  thinks  it  time  to  speak  incisively  of  swindling 
theatrical  amusements,  as  ^Eschylus  would  do  were 
he  here.  When  I  find  the  less  reputable  local  press 
keeping  up  full  descriptions  of  what  you  want  no 
sister  or  brother  of  yours  to  see,  I  am  reminded  that 
sometimes  in  a  great  palace  in  the  city,  if  you  keep 
open  the  bottom  of  a  marble  wash-bowl,  there  is  in 
the  untrapped  lead-pipe  a  connection  with  the  gutter, 
and  diphtheria  may  assail  you  in  the  midst  of  luxury. 
Is  it  quite  profitable  for  us  to  keep  open  the  gilded 
pipe  from  the  marble  basin  to  the  gutter?  You 
remember  the  French  proverb,  as  true  in  practice  as 
in  theory :  "  Where  virtue  ends,  there  vice  begins." 
The  slavehound  is  not  to  be  more  detested  than  the 
actress  of  a  loathsome  play.  A  loaferish  woman  can 
amuse  only  loaferish  men.  A  scandal  which  woman 
meets  with  just  indignation  deserves  abhorrence  every- 
where. We  men  are  to  blame,  we  men  are  to  take 
excoriation,  if,  not  imitating  ancient  Athens,  we  make 
a  portion  of  the  theatre  such  a  scene,  that  had  it  been 
exhibited  in  the  classic  age  of  Greece,  on  that  slope 
of  the  Acropolis  where  .JSschylus,  Euripides,  and 
Sophocles  taught,  it  would  have  been  met  there  with 
loathing  and  all  denunciation  of  it  with  Athenian 
acclaim.  [Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  living  now  under  a  rapidly  wes- 
tering sun;  and  with  the  reverence  of  an  empire, 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  177 

whose  morning  drum-beat  encircles  the  world,  attend- 
ing on  every  serious  word  he  utters,  he  lately  pro- 
claimed that  the  centre  of  all  preaching  must  be  the 
Cross.  At  a  conference  held  at  the  City  Temple, 
Holburn  Viaduct,  March  22,  after  speeches  by  Eng- 
lishmen and  Americans,  there  were  loud  cries  for  Mr. 
Gladstone ;  and,  among  other  memorable  words,  this 
adviser  of  that  queen  who  governs  one-sixth  of  the 
population  of  the  world  used  these  expressions,  to 
which  his  whole  career  adds  emphasis :  — 

"We  are  here  with  a  great  and  mighty  function,  belonging 
from  the  first  especially,  almost  exclusively,  to  revealed  religion, 
—  a  function,  the  efficacy  of  which  must  undoubtedly  depend, 
in  the  main,  upon  the  matter  which  is  preached.  We  are  here 
as  Christians;  and  it  is  the  preaching  of  Christ  our  Lord,  which  is 
the  secret  and  substance  and  centre  and  heart  of  all  preaching,  not 
merely  of  facts  about  him  and  notions  about  him,  but  of  his  person, 
his  work,  his  character,  his  simple  yet  unfathomable  sayings:  here 
lies  the  secret"  (London  Times,  March  23,  1877). 

The  two  ablest  Englishmen  of  our  day  are  Scotch- 
men. When  Thomas  Carlyle  and  William  Glad- 
stone —  under  the  light  of  a  west  almost  cloudless, 
but  not  measureless  in  the  visible  stretch  of  azure  yet 
to  be  rolled  through  by  the  chariots  of  their  lives,  — 
lean  backward  as  they  look  forward,  and  from  be- 
tween the  wheels  that  bear  them  on,  and  which  never 
pause,  speak  to  us  out  of  the  sunset,  is  it  quite  scien- 
tific, is  it  quite  manly,  is  it  quite  womanly,  for  us 
whose  chariots  are  yet  at  the  zenith,  or  ascending  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  azure,  to  forget  that  the  sun 
moves  towards  the  west  as  fast  at  noon  as  in  the  last 


178  ORTHODOXY. 

moment  before  that  in  which  he  fires  the  western 
pines  ?  Gladstone  and  Carlyle,  and  our  century,  are 
westering  and  gazing  on  us  with  the  solemnity  of  the 
hour  into  which  all  men  haste.  In  the  radiance 
which  streams  out  of  the  morning,  noon,  and  evening 
watch  of  the  wheeling  skies  in  which  we  rise  and  set 
but  once,  let  us  be  willing  to  open  any  theme  of 
religious  science,  and  take  all  the  results  clear  ideas 
require  us  to  hold,  whatever  doctrine  stands,  or 
whatever  doctrine  falls.  [Applause.]  God  looks 
through  the  morning,  unstained  radiance  of  life, 
those  dewy,  upstretching,  far-penetrating,  star-lit 
auroras,  which  reveal  the  intuitions,  and  primal, 
untutored  human  instincts.  As  once  he  looked 
through  the  pillar  of  fire  in  the  morning  watch,  so 
yet,  gazing  through  those  auroras,  he  troubles  the 
hosts  of  unscientific,  irreligious  thought.  He  looks 
also  through  the  evening  cloud,  and  troubles  the 
hosts  of  Iscariotism,  and  takes  off  their  chariot- 
wheels.  Thor's  hammer  is  engaged  in  that  business. 

In  the  light  of  previous  discussions  of  the  atone- 
ment, you  must  allow  me  to  say  that  the  following 
propositions  —  which  are  almost  omnipresent  in 
James  Martineau's  references  to  this  topic,  and  in 
many  discussions  conducted  by  honored  men  here  in 
New  England,  whom  I  need  not  name  —  are  only  a 
multiplex  rustle  of  misconceptions.  I  do  not  call 
these  statements  misrepresentations ;  but  they  are  mis- 
apprehensions which  have  done  and  are  yet  doing 
immortal  mischief. 

1.  That  Christ,  although  innocent,  was  punished. 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  179 

2.  That  God  punishes  by  substitution. 

3.  That,  if  a  penalty  for  the  yiolation  of  moral 
law  be  inflicted  so  as  to  maintain  the  honor  of  that 
law,  God  is  indifferent  on  whom  that  punishment 
falls. 

4.  That  God  was  at  first  disposed  to  show  mercy, 
and  was  made  placable  by  the  death  of  Christ. 

5.  That  the  Atonement  involves  a  transfer  of  moral 
qualities  from  person  to  person. 

6.  That  pardon,  and  not   merely  the  conditional 
offer  of  it,  precedes  the  soul's  self-surrender  to  God." 

7.  That  the  Atonement  involves  the  injustice  of 
liberating  the  guilty. 

8.  That  it  saves,  irrespective   of  character,  who- 
ever has  faith. 

9.  That  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  immutability  of 
the  Divine  attributes. 

10.  That  it  represents  the  law  of  the  nature  of 
things  as  supreme  over  the  Divine  Will  itself. 

11.  That,  as  the  Atonement  is  provided  for  all,  it 
secures  the  salvation  of  all. 

12.  That,  if  pardon  can  be  obtained  on  the  condi- 
tion of  faith  merely,  morality  is  unimportant. 

These  propositions  evangelical  scholarship  not  only 
does  not  teach,  but  abhors.  [Applause.]  Gentle- 
men, what  you  say  here  goes  very  much  further  than 
any  thing  I  can  present.  Beware  of  approving  state- 
ments of  mine,  for  your  indorsement  makes  language 
important.  You  have  said,  however,  that  all  these 
propositions  are  caricatures ;  and  yet,  if  you  are  right, 
there  is  hardly  a  professor's  chair  in  any  school  of 


180  OKTHODOXY. 

unevangelical  theology  in  New  England  that  is  not 
wrong  in  its  fundamental  representations  of  evangel- 
ical thought.  [Applause.] 

Opening  only  by  glimpses  the  greatest  theme 
which  human,  unassisted  reason  can  touch,  I  must 
proceed  analytically,  and  with  what  scholars,  to 
whom  I  am  not  speaking,  may  perhaps  think  is  un- 
necessary slowness.  I  desire  to  accompany  you,  this 
morning,  in  your  ascent  along  one  of  the  most  mod- 
ern pathways  of  thought  to  a  mountain  summit  from 
which  I  hope  the  outlook  will  cause  us  to  fall  on  our 
knees,  and  send  us  away  with  strength  for  many 
days.  I  am  discussing  the  Atonement  in  the  light 
of  self-evident  truth ;  and,  if  I  am  not  using  proof- 
texts,  it  is  not  because  I  undervalue  them.  On 
other  occasions  it  is  my  duty  to  expound  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  but  here  the  object  is  to  show  the  connec- 
tion between  religious  and  other  science.  Ando- 
ver  Seminary  yonder  has  just  asked  for  funds  to 
found  a  professorship  with  this  title,  "  On  the  Con- 
nections between  Theology  and  the  other  Sciences." 
May  she  obtain  money  in  abundance  for  a  purpose 
so  timely  and  sublime,  and  may  something  better 
than  wealth  come  to  America  out  of  such  a  foun- 
dation !  In  the  field  of  the  relations  between  reli- 
gion and  science,  this  Lectureship  has  for  its  object 
simply  the  discussion  of  the  clear,  the  true,  the 
new,  the  strategic.  The  best  posture  of  mind  is 
that  which  seeks  first,  not  orthodoxy,  but  clear- 
ness. Of  course,  truth  is  immeasurably  the  high- 
est object  of  consideration;  but,  when  we  say  we 


THE  SOUL  AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.  181 

must  seek  truth  first,  such  is  the  subtle  action  of 
prejudice,  that  truth  is  commonly  understood  to 
mean  my  truth,  not  your  truth.  Therefore  let  us 
first  seek  clearness,  and  not  your  truth  or  my  truth. 
Clearness  will  not  mislead  us  if  we  set  it  up  as  a 
goal ;  but  our  prejudgments  as  to  what  truth  is  may 
easily  do  so.  Let  us  be  true  to  the  scientific  method, 
and  truth  will  take  care  of  itself.  Let  us  seek  pri- 
marily to  be  distinct  and  straightforward,  and  only 
secondarily  to»  be  orthodox  or  heterodox.  Let  us 
not  confuse  ourselves  with  the  slightest  partisan 
prejudice.  Let  us  keep  all  creeds  out  of  our  minds 
as  much  as  possible,  and  seek  first,  midst,  last, 
all  that  Intuition,  Instinct,  Experiment,  and  Syllo- 
gism can  teach  us,  or  perfect  loyalty  to  the  scientific 
method.  [Applause.] 

1.  God  wills  man's  perfection. 

2.  Man  cannot  be  perfect  without  a  perfect  reli- 
gion. 

3.  God,  therefore,  will  give  man  a  perfect  religion. 
In  democratic  ages  small  philosophers,  whose  rule 

of  procedure  is  to  guess  at  the  half,  and  multiply  by 
two,  are  great  characters ;  but  lost  babes  are  greater, 
—  those  who  think  it  the  supreme  philosophical  glory 
never  to  come  to  a  conclusion,  and,  on  the  whole, 
are  of  the  opinion  that  the  best  thing  we  can  do  in  the 
forest  of  human  investigation  is  to  lie  down,  after  the 
ancient  and  not  honorable  example  narrated  in  child- 
hood's primers,  and  let  the  robins  cover  us  with  leaves. 
Unmanly,  despairing  bewilderment,  and  unconfessed, 
desponding,  intellectual  unrest  thrive  in  more  edu- 


182  ORTHODOXY. 

cated  minds  than  we  think,  and  this  simply  because 
we  have  masses  of  highly-cultured  people  who  have 
never  looked  into  religious  thought  as  a  science. 
Nearly  all  investigation  of  theology  as  a  system  of 
exact  research  has,  little  by  little,  been  crowded  into 
the  distinctively  theological  schools.  Almost  nothing 
is  taught  on  this  theme  in  our  colleges  at  present, 
because  so  much  more  matter  is  forced  into  their 
courses  now  than  was  there  eighty  or  one  hundred 
years  ago.  It  is  not  because  Harvard  undervalues 
ethics  or  the  Christian  evidences,  that  she  gives 
little  time  to  them.  Yale  gives  almost  as  little  time. 
For  my  examination  in  ethics  in  Harvard  University, 
I  prepared  in  two  days;  and  the  examination  ran 
through  twenty-seven  minutes.  How  much  could  I 
learn  in  that  time  on  topics  that  have  convulsed  all 
highly-cultured  thought  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlan- 
tic ?  If  I  had  gone  out  from  the  University,  and  en- 
tered immediately  upon  the  professional  studies,  and 
afterward,  in  regular  course,  upon  the  duties  of  a 
lawyer,  how  much  time  should  I  have  had  to  have 
looked  into  religious  science  elaborately  ?  It  is  said 
that  no  successful  lawyer,  in  the  full  tide  of  the  work 
of  his  profession,  ever  reads  a  book  through.  He  ex- 
amines, perhaps,  as  Carlyle  does,  or  as  Macaulay  did, 
a  dozen  books  a  day,  year  after  year;  but  he  gets 
through  them  swiftly,  as  Macaulay  did,  by  skipping. 
If  I  had  taken  the  profession  of  medicine,  it  is  prob- 
able I  should  have  become  absorbed,  as  I  ought  in 
duty  to  do,  in  that ;  and  so  religious  truth  as  a  sci- 
ence might  never  have  come  before  me.  Cultivated 


THE   SOUL  AND  ITS   ENVIRONMENT.  183 

minds,  with  wide  gaps  in  their  culture,  are  character- 
istic of  an  age  of  specialists ;  and  ours  is  such  an  age. 
College-courses  are  intended  to  sharpen  sickles,  and 
not  to  reap  the  harvest.  But  the  prepared  reaping- 
hooks  are,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  cast  needfully  into 
ripe  rustling  grain  only  on  the  field  of  thought  a  man's 
profession  or  business  compels  him  to  enter.  Even 
for  the  humble  but  indispensable  purpose  of  sharpen- 
ing dull  sickles,  four  years  are  too  few ;  and  yet  no 
more  work  can  profitably  be  crowded  into  those 
years.  The  time  occupied  by  the  studies  pursued  at 
Harvard  arid  Yale  is  already  packed  as  full  as  an  egg  is 
with  meat,  and  so  full,  that  sometimes  the  egg  will  not 
hatch.  One  of  the  intellectual  dangers  of  our  time 
is  the  almost  necessary  existence  of  a  wide  circle  of 
cultured  minds  well  educated  only  on  one  side. 
In  that  class  you  find  most  of  those  who  lie  down  in 
the  tropical  forests  of  modern  thought,  and  say,  "  We 
cannot  find  the  way  home."  I  affirm  that  if  there  is 
a  God,  and  if  he  is  not  a  malevolent  being,  he  not 
only  has  made  a  best  way  to  live,  but  has  made  it 
sure  that  it  is  best  to  live  the  best  way.  He  wills 
our  perfection  ;  and,  if  he  is  a  benevolent  being,  he 
will  not  only  give  us  a  religion  that  will  carry  us  to 
perfection,  but  he  will  make  it  so  plain,  that  he  who 
runs  may  read,  if  he  will.  Wherever  in  the  forest  a 
man  wishes  you  to  drop  down  in  despair,  there  recall 
and  recite  the  great  Credo :  That  God  wills  man's 
perfection ;  that  man  cannot  be  perfect  without  a 
perfect  religion;  and  that  therefore  God  will  give 
man  a  perfect  religion,  so  clear  that  it  will  be  the 


184  ORTHODOXY. 

light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world.  While  I  hold  to  a  belief  in  God's  goodness,  I 
must  believe,  although  I  cannot  know  the  map  of  all 
the  forest,  that  there  is  a  way  home,  and  that  I  can 
find  the  path  back  to  my  Father's  house  !  [Applause.] 
Our  surprising  friends  who  believe  that  the  uni- 
verse is  without  a  path  home  are  the  worst  of  the 
class  of  lost  babes ;  but  for  five  centuries  to  come 
probably  theirs  will  be  one  of  the  most  misleading  of 
the  temporary  influences  in  the  circles  of  merely  pro- 
fessional or  special  culture.  If  this  is  the  condition 
of  many  who  have  been  liberally  educated,  what  shall 
be  said  of  the  masses  of  average  men  of  strong  minds 
and  inextensive  studies,  whose  heads  are  buried  in 
their  ledgers  and  newspapers,  and  who  have  not  time 
to  look  at  religious  truth  as  a  science,  until  clearness 
is  reached  concerning  it,  and  do  not  know  by  their 
own  investigation  what  to  think,  and  in  a  democratic 
and  scientific  age  are  little  likely  to  take  any  thing 
for  granted  or  on  authority?  Democratic  ages  can 
never  be  taught  ex  cathedra.  All  men  must  think 
for  themselves ;  and  so  all  men  must  be  taught  how 
to  think.  It  is,  therefore,  worth  while  for  public 
educated  discussion  to  put  in  the  foreground  axioms, 
self-evident  truths,  intuitions,  instincts,  or  the  nature 
of  things,  and  to  let  men  see,  that,  after  all,  the  great 
truths  we  cannot  help  believing  are  the  things  of 
most  importance  to  us.  We  know  we  are  dependent 
beings.  We  know  we  did  not  create  ourselves.  We 
are  here ;  and  once  we  were  not  here.  Our  coming 
into  existence  was  a  change.  Every  change  must 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  185 

have  an  adequate  cause.  There  is  a  Power  above  us. 
If  we  are  dependent  beings,  there  must  be  an  inde- 
pendent Being.  Just  as  there  cannot  be  a  here  with- 
out a  there,  an  upper  without  an  under,  so  there  can- 
not be  a  dependent  being  without  an  independent, 
that  is,  a  self-existent  Being.  If  we  can  induce  men 
to  attend  to  the  scientific  certainty,  that,  without 
similarity  of  feeling  with  that  Being,  their  peace  is  a 
natural  impossibility ;  if  we  can  cause  them  to  feel 
that  their  consciences  are  the  touch  of  God  within 
them,  or  of  a  Somewhat  and  Some  One  in,  but  not  of 
us,  we  shall  slowly  bring  them  to  believe  that  these 
axioms,  these  constitutional  instincts,  these  ineradica- 
ble moral  beliefs,  are,  and  were  meant  to  be,  a  clew 
to  the  path  that  leads  into  the  King's  Highway,  and 
brings  men  into  the  land  on  which  the  sun  never 
sets.  Whoever  will  read  with  reverence,  clearness, 
and  fulness  the  Oldest  Testament,  or  the  Nature  of 
Things,  will  have  such  convictions  as  he  reads  the 
Old  Testament,  and  the  New  and  the  Newest,  that 
he  will  find  his  cheeks  growing  pale  if  he  is  disloyal 
to  the  truth  he  meets  ;  or,  if  he  is  loyal,  his  forehead 
becoming  white,  and  his  eyes  like  stars. 

4.  A  perfect  religion  will  secure  for  all  who  accept 
it  blessedness. 

5.  But  there  can  be  no  blessedness  without  holi- 
ness. 

6.  For  a  free  moral  agent  who  has  sinned,  there 
can  be  no  blessedness  without  holiness  and  pardon. 

7.  A  perfect  religion,  therefore,  will  secure  for  all 
who  accept  it  holiness  and  pardon. 


186  OETHODOXY. 

8.  A  perfect  religion  will  harmonize  us  with  our 
environment. 

9. 'But  our  environment  here  and  hereafter  con- 
victs unalterably  of  God,  conscience,  and  our  record 
of  sin. 

10.  A.  perfect  G-od  who  wills  man's  perfection  will 
teach  man  the  methods  of  harmonizing  himself  with  his 
environment. 

11.  In  the  nature  of  things  we  cannot  be  harmonized 
with  that   environment  unless  religion  provides  for  us 
both  holiness  and  pardon. 

Why,  if  we  are  loyal  to  the  scientific  method,  we 
ought  to  sleep  on  propositions  like  these  ;  for  they 
will  not  fall  into  tremor  until  the  pillars  of  the  uni- 
verse fall.  It  is  affirmed,  I  am  told,  that  I  never 
have  had  any  conflict  with  doctrinal  unrest ;  but  it 
was  my  fortune  to  quit  for  three  years  a  college- 
course  at  its  central  part,  that  I  might  find  time  to 
give  myself  information  on  certain  majestic  topics, 
the  investigation  of  which  I  longed  for  more  than 
vexed  Sahara,  with  its  deadly  thunderous  simooms 
and  dervish  dance  of  sand-pillars,  ever  longed  for  the 
dew  or  rain.  It  is  of  little  consequence  to  you,  but 
it  is  of  consequence  to  me,  that  a  certain  desert 
Carlyle  speaks  of  has  been  under  my  feet.  You 
know  he  says  we  must  not  sit  down  in  that  howling 
waste,  but  keep  on ;  and  that  beyond  it  we  shall  find 
the  green  fields,  and  the  waters  that  quench  all  thirst. 
All  those  springs  burst  out  of  axioms ;  that  is,  out 
of  ranges  of  living  rock,  whose  roots  take  hold  of 
the  core  of  the  world. 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  187 

12.  After  six  thousand  years  of  experience,  man's 
philosophical  and  moral  restlessness  proves,  that, 
without  violence  to  self-evident  truth,  he  has  found 
no  way  of  harmonizing  himself  by  his  own  excellence, 
or  solely  by  his  own  good  works,  with  his  entire 
environment,  including  conscience,  God,  and  a  record 
of  deliberate  sin  in  an  irreversible  past. 

Some  men  ask  how,  if  the  past  is  irreversible,  we 
can  be  happy,  even  in  heaven  ?  Was  the  past  of  the 
prodigal  who  returned  to  his  father's  house  not 
irreversible?  Forever  and  forever  it  could  not  be 
changed.  But  was  he  happy  after  his  return?  As- 
suredly. 2s  the  house  not  made  with  hands  so  very 
different  from  the  present  dwelling-place  of  men,  that 
we  cannot  reason  from  the  experience  of  a  prodigal  here 
to  experience  there  ?  Moral  as  well  as  physical  law  has 
unity  and  universality.  In  some  respects  a  prodigal's 
record  enhances  his  bliss  on  his  return:  in  other 
respects  it  diminishes  bliss,  as  it  must  always  be 
remembered  with  regret.  Is  the  balance  so  much  in 
favor  of  bliss,  that  we  may  conclude,  in  the  name  of 
science,  that  we  shall  add  to  our  happiness  by  living 
a  while  in  the  strange  country,  under  famine  and 
with  the  swine  ?  No  serious  man  asks  this  question ; 
but,  to  my  amazement,  I  have  been  seriously  asked 
by  an  unscientific  liberalism  to  deny  that  the  past  is 
irreversible.  Alas  that  the  soft  whims  of  luxury 
and  superficiality  are  in  conflict  with  Eternal  Enact- 
ments !  Is  all  science  asleep,  that  we  do .  not  see 
that  the  nature  of  things  is  —  He  whom  we  dare  not 
name!  If  I  deny  that  the  past  is  irreversible,  I 


188  ORTHODOXY. 

must  deny  a  very  large  number  of  truths  guaranteed 
to  us  by  the  same  evidence  ;  that  is,  by  self-evident 
truth.  I  must  deny  that  the  whole  is  greater  than 
a  part,  or  that  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance 
between  two  points,  or  that  every  change  must  have 
a  cause.  It  is  just  as  evident  that  what  has  once 
been  cannot  be  made  not  to  have  been,  as  that 
every  change  must  have  a  cause.  If  you  play  fast 
and  loose  with  axioms,  you  have  a  task  larger  than 
that  of  Sisyphus  on  your  hands  to  prove  that  you 
know  any  thing.  You  know  that  you  know  that 
nothing  can  be  known.  How  do  you  know  that  you 
know  ?  The  time  has  come  when  we  must  teach  the 
outlines  of  the  philosophy  of  axioms,  or  self-evident 
truths,  to  John  and  James,  and  Patrick  and  Michael, 
and  the  Monthly  Rocket  and  the  Daily  Blunderbuss. 
A  little  philosophy  is  in  all  men's  minds,  and  it  is  a 
dangerous  thing.  The  Castilian  spring  must  be 
made  to  run  through  democratic  ages  in  streams 
large  enough  to  quench  the  thirst  of  multitudes, 
otherwise  there  will  be  trouble.  [Applause.] 

I  affirm,  that,  by  experience,  the  proposition  is 
guaranteed  to  us  as  fully  as  any  other  inference  from 
history,  that  man  has  not  invented  a  religion  wholly 
out  of  reason,  that  would  harmonize  his  nature  with 
his  whole  environment.  Where  is  that  invented 
scheme  of  thought  ?  How  many  attempts  have  been 
made  to  harmonize  man  with  his  entire  environment, 
and  to  use  in  the  attempt  only  reason !  and  how,  age 
after  age,  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  has 
forced  to  the  wall  human  inventions  on  that  theme ! 


THE   SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  189 

If  there  were  a  great  philosophy  that  could  provide 
for  man's  harmonization  with  his  entire  environment, 
we  should  know  its  name  ;  we  should  be  following  it. 
Plato's  philosophy  !  —  well,  it  is  twenty-two  hundred 
years  old ;  but,  if  some  of  its  fundamental  proposi- 
tions were  carried  out,  you  and  I  to-day  would  be 
living  in  barracks,  and  could  not  tell  who  our  broth- 
ers are,  or  our  sisters,  or  who  our  parents  were.  I 
know  how  glorious  portions  of  Plato's  teaching  are  ; 
but  the  truth  is  that  the  central  ideas  in  his  system 
are  not  able  to  satisfy  man.  They  have  not  been 
adopted  as  the  rule  of  life:  they  have  had  fair 
hearing.  You  know  what  is  governing  the  world 
to-day.  After  twenty-two  hundred  years  of  conflict, 
it  is  not  philosophy  that  governs  social  life.  Some 
reverence  is  to  be  had  for  a  cause  that  has  seen 
battle,  age  after  age,  but  never  yet  defeat.  "  God  is 
on  the  side  of  the  heaviest  battalions,"  Napoleon 
used  to  say ;  and  it  looks  as  if  Christianity  were  not 
a  very  weak  battalion.  The  test  of  scholarship  is 
that  it  should  contend  with  scholarship,  not  once  or 
twice,  but  century  after  century,  and  come  out 
crowned. 

13.  Man's  need  of  an  Atonement  not  made  by  him- 
self, and  assuring  him  of  pardon  has,  therefore,  been 
proved  by  human  experience. 

14.  This  need  is  also  an  incontrovertible  inference  from 
the  natural  operations   of  conscience   and   the  unchan- 
geableness  of  the  past. 

Of  that  central  proposition   I  have  offered  here 
detailed  proof;  and  so,  without  expanding  this  dis- 


190  ORTHODOXY. 

cussion,  I  put  now  our  previous  conclusion  into  its 
natural  connections  of  thought.  It  is  held  here  that 
whoever  will  be  loyal  to  the  scientific  method,  or  to 
axiomatic  truth  in  its  relation  to  the  conscience  and 
an  irreversible  past,  will  come  out  with  the  scientific 
certainty  that  such  arrangements  as  may  harmonize 
us  with  our  entire  environment,  man's  own  excellence 
of  character  cannot  make.  We  have  concluded  once 
for  all  here,  in  the  name  of  self-evident  truth,  that 
Lady  Macbeth' 's  use  of  water  will  be  fruitless  forever. 
But  she  must  have  her  hand  made  white,  or  the 
record  in  her  past  covered;  for,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  she  cannot  be  at  peace  with  her  entire  en- 
vironment until  her  foreboding  is  taken  away. 

15.  So  far  forth  as  any  religion  provides  for  man's 
holiness  and  pardon,  it  has  the  marks   of  being  a 
perfect  religion. 

16.  Alone  among  all  religions  yet  known   to   men, 
Christianity,  without   coming    into    conflict  with   self- 
evident  truth,  provides  both  for  man's  holiness  and  his 
pardon. 

17.  Alone    among   all  religions   known    to  men, 
Christianity,  therefore,  has  the  marks  of  being  a  per- 
fect religion ;   for  it,  and  it  only,  provides  for  both 
man's  holiness  and  his  pardon. 

18.  It  does  the  latter  by  the  revealed  truths  of  the 
Incarnation  and  the  Atonement. 

19.  So  far  forth  as    Christianity  could  not,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  provide  for  man's  blessedness  and  per- 
fection, or  his  holiness  and  pardon,  without  the  Incar- 
nation and  the  Atonement^  so  far  forth  the  Incarnation 


THE   SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  191 

and  Atonement  had  an  eternal  and  abiding  necessity  in 
the  wise  and  free  love  of  G-od,  since  this  love  wills  the 
perfection  of  man  who  cannot  be  perfect  without  a  per- 
fect religion,  and  cannot  attain  blessedness  without  both 
holiness  and  pardon.  [Applause.] 

20.  So  far  forth  as  this  necessity  inheres  in  the  nature 
of  things,  the  Divine  idea  relative  to  the  completion  of 
the  world  first  arrives  at  perfection,  or  at  realization, 
through  the  Incarnation  and  the  Atonement. 

21.  The  religion  of  Christ,  including  the  truths  of  the 
Incarnation  and  the  Atonement,  is  the  only  religion,  that, 
without   violence    to    self-evident  truth,  brings  man   to 
peace  with  his  entire  environment. 

22.  It  is,  therefore,  scientifically  known  to  be  a 
perfect  or  absolute  religion. 

Gentlemen,  we  are  drawing  nigh  one  of  the  highest 
summits  of  the  loftiest  range  of  ethical  thought.  I 
open  the  best  book  on  the  Deity  of  our  Lord  which 
has  been  produced  in  the  last  century,  Dorner's 
"History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ;" 
and,  although  you  cannot  find  these  propositions 
analytically  stated  anywhere  in  the  volume,  you  may 
find  them  everywhere  implied  in  it,  and  scattered 
through  the  freshest  portions  of  the  world's  best 
ethical  and  theological  scientific  research  on  this 
theme.  You  want  a  twig  off  the  German  tree,  and  I 
give  you  one  in  order  that  you  may  judge  whether 
the  sap  in  it  is  not  of  precisely  the  same  quality  with 
that  of  the  circulating  fluid  of  thought  in  these 
analytical  propositions.  Off  this  stalwart  tree,  which 
I  chose  as  a  confessedly  crowned  specimen  of  the 


192  ORTHODOXY. 

growths  of  modern  thought  on  this  theme,  I  will 
pluck  this  spray  of  foliage,  assured,  that,  if  you  hold 
it  up  in  the  wind  of  self-evident  truth,  it  will  have 
a  harp -like  tone.  What  anthem,  then,  might  you 
not  hear,  if  you  were  to  walk  into  a  whole  forest  of 
such  growths  ? 

"  The  world  of  humanity  and  spirits  constitutes  a  real  unity 
solely  in  virtue  of  the  circumstance  that  over  its  essence,  which 
consists  in  free  susceptibility  to  God,  there  stands  the  per- 
sonal and  universal  Divine  principle;  and  that  this  principle, 
whilst  standing  over,  is  also  turned  towards,  nay  more,  belongs 
to  it,  so  far  as  it  is  the  true  kosmos;  so  that  without  it,  the 
world  cannot  at  all  be  conceived  as  a  completed  and  filled  unity. 

"  The  ide%of  the  world  as  it  stands  eternally  before  God  is 
not  terminated  and  completed  with  susceptibility  to  God,  but, 
according  to  his  unfathomable  gracious  will,  includes  also  that 
this  susceptibility  be  absolutely  filled  in  itself;  and  at  the  point 
where  the  central  fulfilment  corresponding  to  this  central  sus- 
ceptibility takes  place,  the  world,  too,  — which,  as  merely  sus- 
ceptible to  God,  or  even  sinful,  was  outside  of  God,  —  entered 
into  the  circle  of  the  Divine  Life,  into  the  life  of  the  triune 
God  himself,  even  as  the  immanent  Divine  Life  explicated 
itself  here. 

"  The  Son  is  not  the  world,  but  its  Divine  principle,  which 
brought  a  world  to  pass,  not  by  a  necessity  of  nature,  but  ac- 
cording to  the  inner  law  of  love,  which  is  at  the  same  time  the 
law  of  freedom.  He  is  also  not  the  ideal  world,  nor  the  image 
of  the  world  in  God,  but  primarily  its  principle.  Still  we  are 
compelled  to  say  that  the  world  —  both  according  to  its  idea, 
and  according  to  the  idea  of  the  will  of  the  Logos,  in  other 
words,  the  Divine  idea  relative  to  the  completion  of  the  world  — 
first  arrives  at  perfection,  at  realization,  through  the  incarna- 
tion. 

"  This  leads  to  a  further  point,  which  is  of  decisive  impor- 
tance both  in  itself  and  in  a  systematical  respect,  —  a  point  by 


THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONMENT.  193 

which  the  historical  in  Christ  is  raised  to  absolute  significance, 
and  is  removed  from  the  sphere  of  contingency.  This  is  the 
truth,  that  the  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ  had  not  its  sole 
ground  in  sin,  but,  besides  sin,  had  a  deeper,  to  wit,  an  eternal 
and  abiding  necessity  in  the  wise  and  free  love  of  God,  so  far  as 
this  love  willed,  in  general,  the  existence  of  a  world  which 
should  be  the  scene  of  its  perfect  revelation,  and  so  far  as, 
consequently,  the  world  is  marked  by  susceptibility  to  and 
need  of  this  revelation."  (DORNER,  PROFESSOR  J.  A.,  on  the 
Person  of  Christ,  div.  ii.  vol.  iii.  pp.  235,  236.) 

This  is  the  successor  of  Schleiermacher  in  the  Uni- 
versity at  Berlin,  speaking  in  the  best  university  of 
the  world,  and  at  the  end  of  age  after  age  of  the 
acutest  scholarly  discussion  of  this  theme.  I  might 
put  before  you  volumes  of  such  discussion ;  but  they 
would  point  only  to  the  sublime  creed,  that  God  wills 
man's  perfection ;  that  he  cannot  be  perfect  without 
a  perfect  religion ;  that  he  will  give  man,  therefore, 
a  perfect  religion ;  and  that  Christianity  is  the  only 
religion  that  has  the  two  marks  of  perfection, — 
ability  to  harmonize  man  with  his  entire  environ- 
ment by  providing  for  both  his  holiness  and  his 
pardon. 

23.  But  there  cannot  be  two  perfect  or  absolute 
religions,  or  one  with  Christ,  and  one  without  Christ. 

24.  The  religion  of  Christ,  including  the  truths  of 
the  Incarnation  and  the  Atonement,  is,  therefore,  the 
only  absolute  religion. 

25.  A  body  of  thought,  of  which  an  outline  has 
now  been  given,  is  taught  implicitly  in  New  England, 
England,   and   Scotland  to-day,  and  in  Germany  is 
explicitly  adopted  by  theologians  such   as   Dorner, 


194  ORTHODOXY. 

Niztsch,  Martensen,  Ebrard,  Schmid,  Petersen,  Kling, 
Nagelsbach,  Schoberlein,  Ehrenfeuchter,  Chalybseus, 
Fischer,  Liebner,  Lange,  and  Rothe.  (See  DOENEE, 
Person  of  Christ,  div.  ii.  vol.  iii.  p.  237.) 

Theodore  Parker's  Absolute  Religion  was  a  reli- 
gion without  the  Incarnation,  a  religion  without  the 
Atonement,  a  religion,  therefore,  adequately  discredit- 
ed by  scientific  thought  and  human  experience,  as 
unable  on  the  one  hand  to  provide  for  man's  pardon 
without  violating  self-evident  truth,  and  therefore 
unable  on  the  other  to  give  him  that  transfiguration 
of  his  entire  nature,  that  deliverance  from  the  last 
ache  of  Pharisaic  pride,  that  eternal  cessation  of 
the  unrest  of  forced  deistic  repose,  that  similarity 
of  feeling  with  a  Saviour  who  is  gladly  taken  as 
Lord,  that  peace  unsearchable  and  eternal,  which 
springs  up  only  in  the  light  of  the  Cross.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Revelation  is  a  king  unmarried ;  science  is  a  queen 
unmarried ;  but  from  eternity  and  for  eternity  these 
two  have  changed  eyes. 

"  He  is  the  half  part  of  a  blessed  man, 
Left  to  be  finished  by  such  as  she; 
And  she  a  fair  divided  excellence 
Whose  fulness  of  perfection  lies  in  him." 

King  John,  act  ii. 

[Applause.] 


VII. 
TKUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM. 

THE   SEVENTY-SIXTH    LECTURE  IN   THE   BOSTON  MONDAY  LEC- 
TURESHIP,  DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE   APRIL   30. 


"  Die,  Epicure.,  Quse  res  faciat  beatum?   Kesponde,  Voluptas  cor- 
poris.    Die,  Stoice:  Virtus  animi.    Die,  Christiane:  Donum  Dei." 

ST.  AUGUSTDTB. 

"  ARUISIT  infans,  nee  moratus  retulit: 
Est  quidquid  illud,  quod  ferunt  homines  Deum, 
Unum  esse  opportet,  et  quod  uni  est  unicum. 
Cum  Christus  hoc  sit,  Christus  est  verus  Deus. 
Genera  deorum  multa  nee  pueri  putant." 

PKKISTEPH:  Hymn. 


vn. 

TRUE  AND  FALSE   OPTIMISM. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

WASHINGTON  IRVING  was  once  invited  to  Boston 
by  the  historian  Prescott  to  spend  a  week  of  leisure, 
but  refused  to  do  so  on  the  ground  that  hard  work 
was  a  greater  delight  than  rest.  Only  those  who 
have  had  experience  in  the  deepest  secrets  of  life 
understand  that  our  best  blisses  come  from  the  per- 
formance of  our  most  odious  duties.  "  It  would  give 
me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  enjoy  companionship  with 
a  few  choice  spirits  like  yourself,"  Irving  wrote  to 
Prescott ;  "  but  I  dread  the  vortex  of  gay  society. 
Habits  of  literary  occupation  have  almost  unfitted 
me  for  idle,  gentlemanly  life.  Relaxation  and  repose 
begin  to  be  insupportable  to  me.  I  feel  a  disposition 
to  relapse  into  hard  writing"  (TiCKNOR's  Prescott, 
illus.  ed.,  pp.  422,  423).  We  think  that  conversation 
with  the  religiously  irresolute  is  a  very  difficult  duty ; 
and  yet  those  who  perform  it  know  that  it  is  the 
source  of  one  of  the  highest  blisses  of  this  life,  and 
find  such  reward,  that  their  hallowed  endeavor  will 
be  prolonged  from  the  love  of  it.  They  will  re- 

197 


198  OETHODOXY. 

lapse,  as  "Washington  Irving  did,  into  hard  work 
at  what  may  have  been,  in  its  earlier  stages,  not  a 
little  distasteful.  Those  are  the  happiest  persons 
in  Boston  to-day,  who  have  done  most  face  to  face 
with  the  religiously  irresolute  during  the  past  three 
months.  Those  will  remember  the  winter  with  the 
greatest  delight  who  have  plunged  themselves  into  this 
cold  sea  of  personal  conversation  with  the  religiously 
indifferent,  and  have  beaten  back  all  its  surges,  in- 
stead of  sinking ;  and,  when  they  have  beaten  them, 
have  found  the  waters  buoying  them  up,  until  now 
stalwart  swimming  is  a  bliss.  Christians  do  not 
know  their  privileges  until  they  learn  to  like  these 
most  difficult  parts  of  a  Christian's  duty. 

Not  far  from  fifty  years  ago  in  this  city,  Lyman 
Beecher  called  one  morning  on  a  respectable  family, 
and  asked  if  the  children  of  the  household  could  not 
be  sent  -to  a  Bible  school.  Dr.  Chalmers  had  done 
something  in  such  schools  in  Scotland  ;  and  it  was  the 
purpose  of  Lyman  Beecher  to  introduce  Chalmers' 
scheme  of  effort  here.  "  My  own  children  are  going," 
said  he  to  the  head  of  the  household,  "  can  you  not 
send  yours  ?  Let  us  have  that  nucleus  to  begin  with." 
In  Boston,  the  Sabbath  school  as  an  instrumentality 
for  the  education  of  society  was  hardly  more  than  a 
germ  fifty  years  ago.  It  was  a  hope ;  it  was  an  im- 
pulse ;  it  had  no  assured  position.  To-day,  in  the 
International  Sabbath-school  Lessons,  that  style  of 
instruction  encircles  the  globe.  In  this  last  yet 
unrolling  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  there 
is,  I  believe,  not  a  Divine  inspiration,  such  as  fills  our 


TEUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  199 

Scriptures,  but  a  Divine  illumination  from  the  Light 
which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world. 
Now,  there  is  one  other  religious  instrumentality, 
almost  in  the  germ  yet,  but  which  might  have  a  field 
as  wide  as  that  which  the  Sabbath  school  has  entered, 
and  become  even  more  fruitful,  would  Christians 
but  learn  Washington  Irving's  secret,  that  hard 
work  at  an  odious  duty  transmutes  into  bliss.  This 
is  a  large  hope,  I  know ;  but  I  refer  to  the  conversa- 
tion-meeting, which  has  had  such  power  in  this  city  in 
the  last  three  months,  and  ought  to  continue  to  have 
the  same  power  in  the  four  hundred  churches  which 
are  now  uniting  their  services  with  those  of  Boston. 
If  there  could  be  in  these  four  hundred  churches  the 
right  use  of  what  is  called  in  England  an  "  after- 
meeting,"  or  what  we  call  a  "  conversation-meeting," 
or  what  is  called  in  older  phraseology  an  "  inquiry- 
meeting,"  and  if  there  could  be  a  full  and  prolonged 
development  of  that  religious  instrumentality,  how 
soon  might  we  not  find  the  church  gladly  doing  all 
the  while  what  it  now  does  in  its  lucid  intervals 
only !  The  Church  now  is  sometimes  zealous,  and 
sometimes  cold.  It  is  amphibious  in  the  sense  in 
which  those  timbers  on  the  mud-flat  in  the  harbor 
yonder  are :  when  the  tide  is  in,  they  are  up  and 
floating ;  when  the  tide  is  out,  they  are  on  the  earth. 
Amphibious  in  the  style  of  drift-wood!  What  if 
we  were  trained  to  be  amphibious  in  the  style  of 
those  to  whom  God  has  given  power  to  meet  diffi- 
culty? In  the  seasons  when  no  great  effort  is  re- 
quired face  to  face  with  the  religiously  irresolute, 


200  ORTHODOXY. 

the  Christian  has  the  right  to  cultivate  his  own  inner 
life,  to  solace  himself  with  the  St.  Augustines,  and 
the  Fenelons,  and  the  Jeremy  Taylors,  and  the  Pas- 
cals. But  when  the  trumpet  calls,  when  the  fallen 
and  perishing  and  degraded  are  to  be  met  face  to 
face ;  when  there  is  effort  going  on  by  which  the 
courses  of  hundreds  of  lives  may  be  determined; 
and  when,  if  every  one  will  mend  one,  all  will  be 
amended,  then  your  Christian  is  to  be  amphibious  in 
the  better  sense  ;  he  should  be  ready  for  the  sternest 
uuty,  and  love  it  even  better  than  the  soft  swathing  of 
himself  in  the  luxuries  of  spiritual  repose.  He  knows 
that  stalwart  action  on  the  field  of  battle  is  rather 
oraver  than  any  military  movement  practised  on  the 
drill-field.  Let  him  stand  face  to  face  with  the 
enemy,  if  he  would  become  a  soldier,  and  not  merely 
face  to  face  with  painted  or  printed  enemies. 

How  shall  a  meeting  be  managed  so  as  to  make 
the  rule  of  courtesy  that  of  Christian  endeavor  in 
conversation  between  the  religiously  resolute  and  the 
religiously  irresolute  ?  Go  to  these  four  hundred 
churches,  —  it  is  my  fortune  to  pass  up  and  down 
New  England, — and  you  will  find  them  disagreed 
sometimes  as  to  just  what  to  do.  But  there  is  com- 
ing to  be  a  very  well-established  custom  as  to  conver- 
sation-meetings. Not  long  ago  we  had  a  hundred 
and  fifty  meetings  in  the  Established  Church  inside 
the  city  of  London,  all  of  them  closed  on  each  night 
with  a  conversation-meeting.  In  that  effort,  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  led ;  and  men  from  some  of  the 
highest  ranks  in  culture  made  it  too  late  to  say  that 


TKUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  201 

this  conversation  is  not  fashionable.  People  who 
will  not  touch  a  pearl  until  somebody  has  handled  it 
with  lavender  gloves  may  know  very  well,  if  they 
will  study  the  history  of  what  the  English  Church 
calls  "missions," — only  another  name  for  "revivals," 
—  that  the  conversation-meeting  has  been  sprinkled 
with  holy  water,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  deserves 
christening  here.  In  London  and  in  many  other 
places  the  common  habit  has  been  to  make  a  request 
that  any  who  are  willing  to  enter  into  religious  con- 
versation will  remain  at  the  close  of  the  meeting. 
All  who  do  not  care  to  enter  into  such  an  exercise  go 
out  while  a  hymn  is  sung :  those  who  remain,  by 
doing  so,  say  that  they  are  willing  to  converse  on 
religion ;  and  so  there  is  no  discourtesy  in  your 
speaking  to  them  under  such  circumstances.  Now, 
let  it  be  the  rule  among  the  churches  of  New  Eng- 
land in  the  winter  season,  when  large  gatherings  can 
be  held  in  the  evenings,  for  every  devotional  meeting 
to  be  closed  by  a  request  that  any  religiously  irreso- 
lute person  who  is  present,  and  who  wishes  to  remain 
for  a  quarter  or  half  an  hour  for  religious  conversa- 
tion, should  do  so.  Let  that  be  the  custom,  as  much 
observed  as  holding  devotional  meetings,  or  as  the  gath- 
ering of  sabbath  schools ;  and  very  soon,  instead  of  a 
church  that  is  a  mere  hook  in  place  of  an  amputated 
hand,  I  will  show  you  a  church  that  has  fingers,  that 
can  reach  into  the  wants  of  society,  and  can  make 
supply  match  demand.  [Applause.] 

In  no  other  way,  so  well  as  by  bringing  the  uncon- 
verted face  to  face  with  the  converted,  can  you  nur- 


202  ORTHODOXY. 

ture  an  inefficient  church-member  into  a  Christian  of 
the  stalwart  type.  For  lack  of  this  work,  we  are 
feeble  ;  for  lack  of  this  work,  some  of  us  are  asleep ; 
for  lack  of  just  this  style  of  effort,  or  its  equivalent, 
some  of  us  are  portly,  indeed,  but  placid  arid  flaccid. 
Let  us  begin,  during  the  illumined  time  which  is 
now  passing  over  our  heads,  a  large  reform  on 
this  theme.  Let  us  make  it  a  rule,  under  the  vol- 
untary system  in  the  free  churches  of  America, 
which  state  churches  of  Europe  watch  closely,  that  a 
conversation-meeting  shall  follow  every  large  devo- 
tional gathering  in  the  central  seasons  of  the  year. 
We  need  many  styles  of  meetings :  the  reform 
gathering  once  a  month,  at  least,  to  attend  to  temper- 
ance, and  perhaps  oftener  in  many  places.  To-day  I 
wish  to  emphasize  one  point  only ;  and  that  is,  that  if, 
in  the  next  fifty  years,  you  will  develop  the  conversa- 
tion-meeting as  you  have  developed  the  Sabbath 
school  in  the  last  fifty,  you  will  find  more  blessed 
results  from  the  conversation-meeting  than  you  have 
from  the  Sabbath  school.  This  I  believe  solemnly, 
in  the  name  of  the  influence  of  such  conversations 
not  £»nly  upon  the  unconverted,  but  upon  the  con- 
verted. I  know  personally  one  church  to  which  it 
was  my  fortune  to  minister,  in  days  which,  like  those 
I  am  now  passing  through,  were  unfit  to  be  used  to 
teach  anybody;  but  that  church  was  led  into  con- 
versation with  the  religiously  irresolute  as  a  stand- 
ard measure.  It  was  a  church  where  those  invited  to 
do  this  work  could  be  trusted  to  do  right  in  such 
conversations.  General  public  instruction  for  such 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  203 

labor  had  been  given.  A  pastor  may  feel  that  he 
cannot  trust  everybody  in  his  church  to  converse 
with  everybody;  but  he  can  give  such  public  in- 
struction, that  the  influence  of  injudicious  advice 
given  in  conversation  will  soon  be  counteracted. 
Let  there  be  right  instruction  from  the  pulpit,  and 
you  can  trust  church-members,  with  proper  oversight, 
to  converse  with  those  who  remain.  This  church, 
of  which  I  have  positive  knowledge,  employed  that 
measure  of  conversation  for  three  months,  and  then 
was  without  a  pastor  for  many  months ;  but  the  con- 
versations and  conversions  went  on.  Men  learned  to 
love  that  style  of  effort.  Instead  of  Sabbath  clubs 
listening  to  sermons  and  music,  and  going  away  talk- 
ing about  the  oratory  and  the  fashions,  the  scent  of 
the  minister's  handkerchief,  and  the  divine  aroma 
of  wardrobes,  white  or  black,  let  us  have  churches 
such  as  those  which  conquered  the  Csesars.  Let  us 
be  sure  that  the  most  difficult  duties  are  the  most 
blissful ;  let  all  the  churches  be  filled  with  this  cer- 
tainty, and  the  hard  work  will  soon  be  so  done  as 
to  be  deadly.  [Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

One  of  the  kings  who  were  prominent  in  the  cru- 
sades was  'taken  prisoner,  and  confined  for  many 
months  in  a  castle  standing  in  that  territory  which 
Turkey  and  Russia  may  soon  deluge  in  blood.  A 
musician,  who  had  been  a  member  of  the  household 
of  this  prince,  sought  long  to  find  the  spot  in  which 
his  lord  was  immured,  but  could  obtain  no  entrance 


204  ORTHODOXY. 

behind  any  castle's  bars.  In  place  after  place  he  wea- 
rily gave  up  the  search,  because  he  could  procure  no 
sight  of  his  lord.  At  last  it  occurred  to  him,  that  in 
his  childhood,  and  when  the  king  was  young,  a  deli- 
cious strain  of  music  had  been  greatly  admired  by 
them  both  ;  and  therefore  this  wanderer,  whenever 
he  appeared  before  a  prison,  would  produce  on  his 
flute  that  strain  of  music,  in  the  hope  that  possibly 
his  lord  might  hear  it,  and  know  that  the  musician 
with  whom  he  had  been  acquainted  was  beneath  his 
window.  One  day  this  searching  singer,  having  been 
refused  entrance  to  the  wards  of  a  castle,  sat  down 
under  its  windows,  and  hour  by  hour  lifted  up  that  en- 
trancing melody  which  the  king  he  sought  had  known 
in  his  youth ;  and  at  last  a  token  was  thrown  to  him 
out  of  a  tower,  indicating  that  his  lord  was  there.  I 
go  up  and  down  in  search  of  scientific  theology.  I  am 
a  poor  musician,  looking  for  my  Lord.  I  am  not  ad- 
mitted to  the  inner  vaults  of  all  castles.  I  know  not 
where  he  may  be  confined  among  the  mysteries  of 
the  universe.  Science  knows,  however,  that  some- 
where he  remembers  a  delicious  strain  of  music, 
which  both  Revelation  and  Science  heard  in  their 
youth.  Religion  and  Science  both  have  the  nature 
of  things  as  their  earliest  memory.  Self-evident 
truth  is  the  delicious  strain  of  music  which  I  will  lift 
up  under  the  barred  windows  of  castle  after  castle, 
until  from  some  tower  I  have  a  token  indicating  to 
me  that  my  Lord  is  there.  I  know  he  heard  that 
melody  of  self-evident  truth  when  he  was  young ;  for 
the  Old  Testament  was  preceded  by  the  Oldest,  and 


TRUE   AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  205 

it  is  only  self-evident  truth.  Among  the  perplexities 
of  the  universe  I  will  lift  up  the  melody  of  axioms, 
self-evident  propositions,  intuitive  truths,  until  out 
of  the  bars  of  mystery  shall  be  thrown  down  a  token 
of  my  Lord,  and  he  and  I  are  together  once  more. 
[Applause.] 

Theodore  Parker  held  that  the  Divine  Perfection  is 
the  first  of  all  theological  truths ;  and  so  did  David 
when  he  struck  his  harp  at  the  edge  of  Siloa's  Brook ; 
so  did  .yEschylus  when  he  smote  his  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Acropolis ;  so  have  all  lofty  and  clear  souls 
taught  that  God  is  the  fulness  of  all  excellence ;  and 
every  just  inference  we  can  draw  from  that  fact  is 
scientific.  Contrast,  however,  a  false  with  a  true 
optimism,  or  Parker's  inferences  from  the  fact  of 
God's  perfection  with  Christian  inferences  from  the 
same  fact. 

The  perfection  of  the  moral  law,  inhering  in  the 
nature  of  things,  proves  the  perfection  of  the  Divine 
Nature. 

The  perfection  of  the  moral  law  is  a  self-evident, 
axiomatic,  intuitive  truth.  It  is  an  axiom  of  con- 
science that  the  voice  which  says  "  I  ought "  utters  a 
mandate  absolutely  perfect:  therefore  the  law  re- 
vealed by  that  mandate  is  perfect.  There  cannot  be 
a  here  without  a  there,  or  a  before  without  an  after, 
or  a  thought  without  a  thinker,  or  a  law  without  a 
lawgiver,  or  a  perfect  law  without  a  perfect  lawgiver. 
(See,  for  detailed  discussion  of  these  propositions, 
Lecture  of  Feb  12.) 

Say  what  you  will  about  the  origin  of  evil,  talk 


206  "    ORTHODOXY. 

as  blandly  or  as  complainingly,  as  blindly  or  as 
searchingly,  as  you  please  concerning  the  problem, 
not  of  error  merely  and  of  infirmity,  but  of  deliber- 
ate sin  and  of  absolute  iniquity  in  the  world,  it  yet 
remains  true  scientifically,  that  all  objection  to  the 
belief  that  God  is  perfect  is  shattered  on  the  axiomat- 
ic certainty  of  the  perfection  of  the  moral  law.  Who 
will  dare  to  say  that  the  nature  of  things  is  not  perfect  ? 
But  it  is  He  ! 

If,  now,  I  am  to  recite  my  own  personal  creed,  so 
far  as  I  can  gain  one  from  a  philosophical  point  of 
view,  it  consists  of  these  two  propositions :  — 

1.  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us. 

2.  What  God  cannot  do  for  us,  he  has  given  us 
power  to  do  for  ourselves. 

That  is  my  optimism ;  but  it  is  optimism  with  an 
if. 

1.  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us. 

2.  What  he  can  do  for  us  is  measured  in  part  by 
our  susceptibility. 

You  admit,  do  you,  that  God  will  do  what  he  can 
for  us?  You  think  God  is  perfect?  You  are  all 
agreed  on  that,  are  you?  Very  well.  Do  not  be 
frightened  if  I  ask  you  to  be  consistent  with  your- 
selves. He  will  do  what  he  can  for  us  ?  Yes. 

3.  God's   creation  of  our  free   susceptibility  is  a 
promise  from  him  that  he  will  fill  it,  if  he  can  do  so 
without  destroying  our  freedom. 

4.  Man  has  a  susceptibility  of  oneness  with  God 
in  conscience. 

5.  He  is,  therefore,  susceptible  of  sinlessness. 


TRUE  ANT>  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  207 

6.  Unless  man's  free  susceptibility  of  sinlessness  is 
somewhere   filled  in  the  history  of  the  race,  God's 
ideal  as  to  man  as  a  type  fails  of  realization. 

7.  But  God's  ideal  and  promise  never  fail. 

8.  Therefore  the  most  perfect  possible  type  of  man 
will  be  brought  into  existence ;  that  is,  somewhere  in 
history  a  sinless  character  will  appear. 

9.  Christ,   a    sinless   character,   has    appeared    in 
history. 

If  we  are  to  take  as  a  test  Christian  conviction, 
victorious  through  ages,  this  last  proposition  will 
stand,  and  I  had  almost  said,  if  we  are  to  take  infi- 
del criticism  as  a  test ;  for  it  is  not  the  tendency  of 
any  form  of  modern  research  to  cast  supreme  doubt 
on  the  sinlessness  of  Christ.  Scepticism  finds  itself 
more  and  more  exclaiming  with  Rousseau  :  "  Socrates 
died  like  a  man ;  the  founder  of  Christianity,  like  a 
God."  Carlyle  says  of  Voltaire,  that  his  central  fault 
is,  that  "  he  meddles  with  religion,  without  being  in 
any  profound  sense  religious."  But  modern  scep- 
ticism is  far  more  reverent  than  Voltaire  was,  and 
often  has  insight  enough  not  to  deny  the  sinlessness 
of  the  Author  of  Christianity.  It  denies  the  sound- 
ness of  his  judgment  in  many  particulars,  talks  in  a 
light  way  about  mistakes  greater  or  less ;  but,  ,when 
it  comes  to  character,  it  is  very  nearly  dumb  before 
the  challenge  of  Christianity  to  show  any  evil  there. 
It  is  not  necessary  for  my  present  purpose,  however, 
speaking  of  scientific  optimism,  to  show  that  this 
point  is  conceded  by  infidelity.  It  has  been  a  general 
consent  of  many  ages,  that  a  Being  who  had  oneness. 


208  ORTHODOXY. 

with  conscience,  and  with  God  in  conscience,  has 
appeared  in  the  world.  All  I  need  to  emphasize  is 
the  certainty,  that,  unless  the  sinless  character  appears 
in  history,  man's  susceptibility  is  not  filled;  the  di- 
vine ideal  for  the  species  has  not  been  realized,  and 
God  has  not  done  what  he  can  for  us.  How  much 
can  God  do  for  us  ?  As  much  as  we  are  susceptible 
of.  How  much  are  we  susceptible  of?  Obedience  to 
conscience,  uninterrupted  oneness  with  the  moral  law.- 
If  our  Lord  was  a  sinless  character,  he  was  the  first 
perfect  man.  He  was  what  every  man  should  have 
been  from  the  beginning.  He  was  the  first  creature 
exhibiting  the  full  susceptibility  of  the  human  kind. 
God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us  ?  Yes ;  but,  if  he  does 
that,  he  will  bring  into  existence  somewhere  a  sinless 
character.  That  is  to  be  expected.  Such  is  in  the 
susceptibility  of  man  as  a  race ;  and  such,  therefore,  is 
within  the  power  of  God  without  destroying  our  free 
will. 

" It  is  not  an  arbitrary  procedure"  writes  Dorner 
("  Person  of  Christ,"  div.  11,  vol.  iii.  p.  224),  "  but 
simply  the  necessity  of  the  case,  to  see  in  Christ,  so  far 
as  sinlessness  is  attributed  to  him,  a  divine  revelation 
of  Grod,  which,  by  realizing,  discloses  the  archetype  of 
holiness ;  which  revelation  could  only  be  brought  to  pass 
through  the  medium  of  an  unique  distinctive  being  of 
Grod  in  him,  by  which  the  image  of  Grod  attained  to 
actual  representation  in  the  world." 

10.  The  possibilities  of  human  nature  are  exhibited 
in  the  "human  nature  of  our  Lord. 

11.  Any  religion   that  is  without   such   a   sinless 


TRUE  AND  FALSE   OPTIMISM.  209 

character  is  defective  in  its  exhibition  of  the  capa- 
bilities of  man,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  a  perfect 
religion. 

12.  Every  religion,  except  Christianity,  is  defective 
in  this  supreme  part. 

Plainly  we  reach  high  issues  here.  But  assuredly 
all  this  is  in  your  belief  that  God  will  do  what  he  can 
for  us.  Propositions  like  these  underlie  the  very 
latest  schools  in  German  thought.  We  have  book 
after  book  on  the  sinlessness  of  our  Lord.  The  philo- 
sophical significance  of  the  numerous  attempts  to 
write  the  life  of  the  Christ  lies  in  the  fact  of  his  sin- 
lessness. It  is  often  said  among  German  cultivators 
of  religious  science,  that  the  character  of  God  is  the 
Alpha  and  Omega;  but  that  the  imperfection  of 
human  nature,  or  the  effect  of  sin,  is  the  Beta  and 
Upsilon  of  philosophy.  One  is  the  A  and  the  Z,  and 
the  other  is  the  B  and  the  Y.  When  we  listen  to  only 
these  four  letters  of  the  alphabet,  we  are  convinced 
that  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us ;  that  what  he  can 
do  is  measured  in  part  by  our  own  free  susceptibility ; 
that  we  have  a  free  susceptibility  of  oneness  with  con- 
science ;  and  that  somewhere  in  the  history  of  the 
race  a  sinless  character  is  to  be  expected.  We  can- 
not fix  dates  for  God's  work.  We  do  not  know 
when  he  will  do  this ;  but  a  perfect  religion  will  look 
forward  to  such  a  character,  or  backward  to  such  a 
character:  otherwise  it  does  not  believe  in  God's 
optimism;  it  does  not  believe  that  he  will  fill  the 
susceptibilities  he  has  created.  Science  must  hold 
that  the  creation  of  a  free  susceptibility  in  man  is 


210  OBTHODOXY. 

the  promise  of  God  to  fill  it,  if  he  can  do  so  without 
our  loss  of  freedom.  There  cannot  be  a  great  instinct 
without  its  correlate ;  and  every  great  susceptibility 
of  man  is  a  divine  promise  that  it  will  be  filled,  if  we 
yield  to  him.  One  test  of  perfection  in  a  religion, 
therefore,  is  its  power  to  bring  out  man  into  sinless- 
ness  ;  and  its  power  to  do  that  must  be  tested  by 
what  it  has  done.  We  must  look  on  every  scheme 
of  religious  thought  from  the  point  of  view  of  man's 
susceptibility ;  and  if  any  system  of  ideas  limits  God's 
activities,  will  not  allow  that  he  in  six  thousand  years 
has  ever  produced  a  sinless  character,  denies  that  he 
has  filled  the  susceptibility  he  created,  and  which  was 
his  promise,  —  in  that  narrowness  of  its  horizon  we 
find  something  very  repulsive  to  the  breadth  of  view 
which  Christ  and  Christian  philosophy  cultivate. 
[Applause.] 

1.  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us. 

2.  What  he  can  do  for  us  is  measured  in  part  by 
our  need. 

3.  We  need  holiness  and  pardon. 

4.  It  has  been  shown  that  we  can  obtain  holiness 
best,  and  pardon  only,  through  an  Atonement  not  our 
own.     (See  Lecture  of  April  16.) 

There  is  always  in  modern  communities  a  great 
difficulty  laid  upon  public  discussion,  when  the  at- 
tempt is  made  to  prove  that  we  really  need  some 
other  assurance  than  that  derived  from  general  views 
of  God's  goodness,  if  we  are  to  know  that  we  have 
had  pardon.  New  England  is  filled  with  Christianity. 
We  have  all  heard  unspeakable  revealed  truths,  until 


TRUE  AXD  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  211 

our  philosophical  thought  is  saturated  with  Christian 
ideas  of  God's  goodness  and  condescension,  more  per- 
fectly than  morning  twilight  ever  was  by  the  coming 
sun.  If  a  man  stands  up  here  to  say  that  he  needs 
some  other  assurance  than  a  general  view  of  God's 
goodness,  in  order  to  knowJie  is  pardoned,  the  reply 
sometimes  is,  that  God's  goodness  is  enough.  The 
Prodigal  Son  came  back ;  and  in  his  case  there  was 
no  Atonement.  Yes ;  but  he  who  taught  the  parable 
of  the  Prodigal  Son  taught  also  that  "  he  came  to 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many."  [Applause.] 
"  This  is  my  blood  shed  for  many  for  the  remission 
of  sins,"  was  the  teaching  of  the  same  lips  which 
taught  that  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  in  which, 
of  course,  all  the  other  teaching  of  the  same  author 
is  presupposed.  We  are  not  to  shut  up  the  Bible 
except  at  one  opening,  or  sew  a  portion  of  its  leaves 
together,  and  take  an  isolated  page  of  it,  and  read  the 
fragment  as  if  it  were  the  whole.  The  parable  of 
the  Prodigal  Son  a  complete  statement?  Why,  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  not !  We  are  to  study  the 
view  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  in  the  scriptural 
landscape,  if  we  are  to  be  liberal  at  all.  But,  even 
in  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  it  is  God's 
mercy,  it  is  God's  condescension,  it  is  his  merit,  and 
not  ours,  that  takes  us  back  in  peace.  Everywhere 
it  is  presupposed  in  the  New  Testament  that  the 
Atonement  is  a  fact.  To  leave  that  out  is  to  take 
the  sun  from  the  noon,  and  then  to  judge  the  sky 
by  a  patch  of  the  twilight.  We  must  be  fair  with  the 
record,  and  interpret  it  at  least  as  honestly  as  we  would 


212  ORTHODOXY. 

a  friend's  written  will  or  a  legal  document,  by  looking 
at  all  there  is  in  it.  Coleridge  was  accustomed  to  say 
—  I  beg  pardon  for  quoting  the  remark  in  Boston  — 
that  if  men  were  to  interpret  wills  and  legal  docu- 
ments, as  some  who  deny  the  fact  of  the  vicarious 
atonement  and  the  Deity  of  our  Lord  are  forced  to 
interpret  the  New  Testament,  lawyers  would  stand 
aghast.  "  I  have  not  fallen  into  these  ways  of  inter- 
pretation," said  Coleridge  (Table  Talk,  p.  327),  "for 
I  went  much  beyond  those  who  hold  them :  I  went 
so  far  west,  that  I  came  into  the  east."  [Applause.] 
You  doubt  whether  the  New  Testament  teaches  the 
Deity  of  our  Lord  ?  What  do  these  words  mean  ? 
"  Ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  ascend  up  to  where  he 
was  before."  "  In  the  beginning  the  Word  was  with 
God  and  was  God."  "  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am." 
Is  man's  pre-existence  taught  in  the  New  Testament? 
The  pre-existence  of  our  Lord  is  taught  there. 

The  truth  is,  that  if  you  will  take  up  the  best 
discussions  from  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  look 
at  the  present  condition  of  exegetical  contests,  you 
will  find,  that,  more  and  more,  objection  to  the  Deity 
of  our  Lord  is  put  upon  philosophical  grounds,  and 
not  on  exegetical.  Some  of  the  old  pieces  of  un- 
fairness are  being  given  up  on  both  sides;  for  no 
doubt  Orthodoxy  has  strained  many  a  text :  but  the 
general  trend  of  scholarship  both  sides  of  the  North 
Sea,  as  you  may  learn  well  enough  by  reading  either 
side  in  the  discussion,  is  to  carry  the  debate  over  to 
the  philosophical  field,  because  it  is  tacitly  under- 
stood that  the  Bible  does  teach  the  fact  of  the 


TKUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  213 

vicariousness  of  the  Atonement  and  the  Deity  of  our 
Lord.  To-day,  when  the  field  is  widened  to  philo- 
sophical considerations,  these  thoughts  that  I  am 
now  presenting  ar£  among  the  most  blazing  of  philo- 
sophical themes*  I  open  here  Dorner,  and  I  find  him 
willing,  face  to  face  with  Germany,  to  stand  on  prop- 
ositions like  these :  "  We  cannot  conceive  that  God, 
in  willing  a  world,  should  not  also  have  willed  it  for 
perfection;  nor  will  it  be  necessary  to  consult  a 
necessity  for  the  Incarnation  on  the  side  of  man,  in 
the  fact  of  sin,  because  we  find  its  necessity  also  in 
the  need  of  perfection ;  or  because  we  affirm  it  to  have 
been  a  necessity  for  G-od,  in  so  far  as,  if  he  willed  a 
perfect  world,  he  could  not  omit  to  will  the  God-man, 
who  is  its  honor  and  crown"  (Person  of  Christ,  div. 
11,  vol.  iii.  pp.  238,  239.)  [Applause.] 

America  has  not  fought  enough  on  this  philosoph- 
ical ground  to  know  its  importance ;  but  Germany 
has.  You  have  been  accustomed  to  use  proof-texts 
to  establish  all  this ;  and  you  have  been  logically  vic- 
torious, as  Germany  has  been,  in  that  contest.  For 
one  student,  I  think  that  you  have  driven  into  chaos, 
horse,  foot,  and  dragoons,  all  exegetical  opponents, 
and  that  Moses  Stuart,  Dorner,  and  Liddon  have 
done  this.  I  asserted  on  this  platform  weeks  ago, 
that  Moses  Stuart's  proof-texts  never  have  been  an- 
swered ;  and  the  curious  and  the  only  reply  that  has 
been  offered  is,  that  I  make  no  reference  to  proof- 
texts.  But  this  philosophical  outline  of  scientific 
optimism  is  in  place  in  Boston,  if  it  is  in  place  in  Ber- 
lin and  in  Edinburgh,  and  assuredly  it  has  had  a  place 
in  the  best  discussions  of  Germany  for  fifty  years. 


214  ORTHODOXY. 

Any  religion  that  comes  to  me  with  a  demand  that  I 
surrender  to  it  my  life,  and  does  not  give  me  assurance 
as  to  my  pardon  before  Grod,  or  exhibit  to  me  the  way  of 
peace  with  my  whole  environment,  is  marked  by  a  lack 
of  intellectual  seriousness.  The  central  thought  with 
me  is,  that  no  scheme  of  religious  science  can  give  a 
man  peace  before  his  demand  for  pardon,  unless  it 
have  in  it  the  idea  of  an  Atonement  not  our  own,  and 
revealing  God's  mercy,  condescension,  and  justice  in 
the  biblical  way.  I  wish  peace  for  myself  as  well  as 
for  others,  and,  in  the  search  for  it,  must  demand  that 
self-evident  truth  be  not  ignored.  When  I,  in  com- 
pany with  my  conscience,  go  hence,  or  when  I  with 
untutored  but  fully  awakened  moral  instincts  stand 
now  face  to  face  with  the  insufferably  resplendent 
moral  law,  I  desire  harmonization  with  my  environ- 
ment. This  I  do  not,  this  my  conviction  is  I  can- 
not, obtain  from  any  scheme  of  thought  not  Christian. 
Christianity  itself  has  difficulty  enough  in  washing 
Lady  Macbeth's  red  right  hand ;  but  it  is  scientifically 
known  that  diluted  Christianity  never  can  do  that 
business.  [Applause.]  Gentlemen,  that  business 
must  be  done.  Philosophy  every  day  is  growing 
more  serious.  The  literature  of  the  world  is  deepen- 
ing in  its  earnestness.  Woman  is  coming  into  modern 
literature ;  and  it  is  therefore  being  purified,  and  with 
its  purification  we  have  a  great  increase  of  literary 
sensitiveness  concerning  moral  ideas.  Philosophy 
partakes  in  this  increase  of  keenness  of  moral  insight ; 
and  the  time  is  coming  when  it  will  be  asked  in  the 
name  of  exact  research,  how  Lady  Macbeth's  hand 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  215 

can  be  washed,  and  when  it  will  be  ascertained  in  the 
name  of  self-evident  truth  that  a  diluted  form  of 
Christianity  cannot  wash  Lady  Macbeth's  hand !  A 
lack  of  intellectual — yes,  a  lack  of  moral  —  serious- 
ness belongs  to  every  philosophy,  and  even  more  to 
every  religion,  that  plays  fast  and  loose  with  self- 
evident  truth,  when  the  problem  is  to  give  peace  to 
man  face  to  face  with  his  entire  environment. 

Show  me  a  philosophy  that  can  wash  Lady  Mac 
beth's  red  right  hand,  and  I  will  show  you  undiluted 
Christianity  in  other  terms.     [Applause.] 

So  far  as  what  God  will  do  for  us  is  measured  by 
our  need,  we  are  not  true  to  Christian  optimism  if 
we  do  not  believe  that  God  will  provide  for  our  peace, 
if  our  wills  permit.  But  is  it  not  known  that  he  can, 
by  a  great  arrangement,  which  we  call  the  Atone- 
ment, make  possible  our  harmony  with  our  environ- 
ment, even  after  we  have  sinned?  Germany  says 
that  incontrovertibly  the  Incarnation  and  Atonement 
are  so  far  necessary  as  they  are  indispensable  to 
man's  pardon  and  holiness.  Not  only  can  we  not 
reach  perfection  without  them,  but,  after  having  once 
fallen  into  disloyalty  to  the  moral  law,  we  cannot 
have  pardon  without  them.  If  God  will  do  what  he 
can  for  us,  he  will  secure  for  us  blessedness  by  secur- 
ing both  holiness  and  pardon,  if  we  will  accept  them. 

5.  If  the   Incarnation  and  Atonement  are  facts, 
they  satisfy  man's  highest  needs. 

This  has  been  proved  philosophically  in  the  last 
fifty  years,  with  a  fulness  of  detail  beyond  a  reply. 

6.  If  we  admit,  therefore,  that  God  will  do  what 


216  ORTHODOXY. 

he  can  for  us,  we  must  say  that  it  is  antecedently 
probable  that  a  great  arrangement  will  be  made  by 
which  pardon  will  be  possible,  without  violation  of 
self-evident  truth. 

This  is  only  Michael  Angelo  again,  old  man  in  the 
Vatican,  and  blind,  feeling  along  that  Torso  in  many 
places  fragmentary,  and  estimating  what  the  plan  of 
the  whole  must  be.  This  is  only  the  French  astrono- 
mer, Leverrier,  asking  where  the  unknown  planet  is 
that  produced  the  perturbations  of  an  orb  that  has 
been  observed  for  years.  This  is  only  science,  in  the 
name  of  the  unity  of  the  moral  as  well  as  the  physi- 
cal law,  walking  out  into  the  infinities  and  the  eter- 
nities with  as  much  courage  as  to  the  moral  side  of 
God's  nature  as  concerning  that  side  of  his  will  which 
produces  physical  arrangements.  As  we  know  there 
is  a  unity  in  the  physical  law  of  the  universe,  we 
know  there  is  in  the  moral;  and,  therefore,  as  we  go 
out  from  here  to  Orion,  knowing  that  gravitation  is 
one  thing  here,  and  one  thing  there,  we  go  out 
on  the  moral  law  from  here  to  the  Great  White 
Throne  itself,  and  bend  a  curve  around  the  infinities 
till  we  feel  sure  that  God's  heart  beats  in  response  to 
man's  wants  of  holiness  and  pardon,  and  beats  in 
such  a  way  that  because  he  is  God,  he  will  do  what 
he  can  for  us,  from  an  eternal  necessity  of  love. 

1.  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us. 

2.  What  he  can  do  for  us  is  measured  in  part  by 
his  own  perfections. 

3.  He  cannot  deny  himself. 

4.  He  therefore  cannot  give  pardon  previous  to 
repentance. 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  217 

What!  A  limit  of  God's  power?  He  loves  us; 
and  he  is  as  a  father  in  this  world,  who  will  not  par- 
don a  child  until  the  child  has  repented.  A  deliber- 
ate lie  has  been  told  you  by  a  child  of  yours,  and 
brazen  impudence  stands  upon  the  boy's  face.  With 
entire  intelligence  as  to  the  character  of  his  act,  he 
denies  that  he  has  told  a  lie,  and  exhibits  no  sorrow 
for  it.  "  Come  now,"  it  is  said  to  you,  "  be  liberal ; 
pardon  that  child  before  he  has  repented."  —  "Of 
course  I  cannot,"  you  reply.  "  I  love  the  child.  If 
I  pardon  him  before  he  repents,  I  injure  him.  He  is 
old  enough  to  know  what  he  is  about;  he  under- 
stands the  evil  of  falsehood ;  he  knows  perfectly 
that  he  has  done  a  thing  that  should  not  have  been 
done,  and  knows  that  I  know  this:  and  now,  if  I 
pardon  him  before  he  repents  at  all,  I  injure  him." 
—  "  Well,  but  be  advanced  in  your  thought ;  have 
enlightened  views  of  the  universe;  do  look  a  little 
into  the  difference  between  new  equipments  and  the 
old,  blunt  weapons  of  warfare ;  do  not  employ  bows  and 
arrows  any  more ;  use  columbiads."  —  "  Why,  it  is  a 
columbiad  in  my  own  soul,  that  I  will  not  pardon 
that  boy  until  he  repents ;  for  I  shall  injure  him  if  I 
do.  I  love  him."  The  columbiad  is  directed  at  your 
bosom !  "  Advanced  thought !  I  am  advanced 
enough  to  take  care  of  my  child ;  and  I  cannot  in 
love  pardon  him  until  I  can  do  so  without  injuring 
him."  A  very  fathomless  cannot,  that  is !  This 
unwavering  curve  of  the  moral  law,  I  believe  sweeps 
around  all  the  constellations  of  the  inner  sky ;  and, 
although  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us,  he  can- 


218  ORTHODOXY. 

not,  without  denying  himself,  pardon  us  until  we 
repent.     [Applause.] 

5.  God    cannot,    without    denying    himself,    give 
blessedness  where  there  is  no  holiness. 

Self-evident  truth  does  not  always  sing  elysian 
melodies.  It  sings  very  stern  battle-anthems;  but 
when  you  have  fought  the  battle,  then  it  sings  trum- 
pet-tones of  bliss  indeed. 

The  central  lie  of  an  unscientific  optimism  is  the 
song  of  the  sirens :  "  Let  us  do  what  we  will ;  we 
shall  by  and  by  will  to  do  what  we  ought." 

6.  With   God  is   no  liberty  to   do  what  is   not 
fitting. 

7.  It  is  not  fitting  that  sin  be  forgiven  without  an 
Atonement. 

This  was  Anselm's  position  (Cur  Deus  Homo?') 
and  for  eight  hundred  years  that  thought  has  been 
tossed  about  in  the  seas  of  debate,  and  swims  to-day 
probably  at  the  very  top  of  all  philosophical  dis- 
cussion on  this  theme.  God  has  no  liberty  to  do 
what  is  not  fit. 

Julius  Miiller  faces  this  thought,  and  calls  pause 
to  all  thinkers  of  our  day  before  that  one  idea.  God 
has  no  liberty  to  do  what  is  not  fitting.  It  is  not 
fitting  that  sin  be  forgiven  without  an  Atonement. 
Your  Dofner  bows  there ;  your  Nitzch  and  Rothe 
bow  there ;  your  New  England,  your  Scottish,  and 
your  English  theologians  bow  there ;  and  infidelity 
itself,  when  asked  to  face  that  proposition,  evades  it, 
and  has  done  so  for  eight  hundred  years.  I  do  not 
know  where  there  is  a  fair  philosophical  discussion 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  OPTIMISM.  219 

from  the  point  of  view  of  scepticism  on  self-evident 
truth  as  applied  to  the  Atonement.  What  am  I  doing 
here  ?  I  am  discussing  transcendentalism  in  its  rela- 
tions to  religious  science.  What  is  it  to  do  that? 
It  is  to  apply  self-evident  truth  to  the  innermost 
holiest  of  Christianity  itself.  It  is  to  lift  up  before 
the  bars  of  mystery,  and  under  the  window  of  our 
Lord,  the  anthem  which  he  heard  in  his  youth,  and 
which  he  gave  us  the  capacity  to  sing,  and  which 
he  will  recognize  by  coming  forth  as  Conqueror, 
[Applause.] 

1.  God  will  do  what  he  can  for  us. 

2.  What  he  can  do  for  us  is  to  be  measured  by 
what  he  has  done  for  us. 

3.  He  has  not  destroyed  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

4.  He  has  not  prevented  evil. 

5.  What  he  has  not  done  cannot  be  done  wisely. 

6.  The  Incarnation  and  Atonement  may  be  proved 
by  historical  evidence  to  be  facts  of  history. 

7.  If  they  are   such,   they  reveal  what  God  has 
done. 

8.  What  God  has  done  is  well  done. 

9.  What  he  cannot  do  for  us,  he  will  give  us  pow- 
er to  do  for  ourselves.    . 

10.  The  origin  of  evil  in  the  universe  is  in  the  fail- 
ure of  free  agents  to  do  the  best  they  can  for  them- 
selves. 

Gentlemen,  I  am  not  bound  in  partisan  wraps  and 
withes.  If  I  know  myself,  I  have  no  desire  other 
than  to  be  clear  and  straightforward.  But  I  know 
that  a  little  while  ago  I  was  not  in  the  world,  and 


220  ORTHODOXY. 

that  a  little  while  hence  I  shall  be  here  no  longer. 
I  know  that  I  cannot  escape  from  myself,  God,  and 
my  record.  I  know  that  I  wish  to  go  hence  in  peace 
with  myself  and  God,  and  that  irreversible  past.  I 
look  about  in  this  dim  stir  of  existence  for  a  scheme 
of  thought  that  will  harmonize  me  with  any  whole 
environment.  I  want  it.  I  am  not  ashamed  of  self- 
love,  though  I  am  of  selfishness.  "What  is  the  differ- 
ence between  self-love  and  selfishness?  Selfishness 
is  a  disproportionate  love  of  self:  self-love  is  a  pro- 
portionate love  of  self.  We  have  a  right  to  self-love, 
and  it  is  not  without  a  proper  place  if  it  urges  us  to 
intellectual  seriousness.  Selfishness  is  always  wrong ; 
for  it  is  the  disproportionate  love  of  self.  I  have  a 
right  to  love  myself  as  well  as  anybody  else  whose 
being  is  of  the  same  worth ;  but  I  must  love  God  in 
proportion  to  his  being ;  that  is,  infinitely,  and  -my 
neighbor  as  myself,  because  he  has  as  much  being  as 
I.  Self-love  leads  me  to  ask  how  I  can  be  harmon- 
ized with  my  past,  and  my  conscience,  and  my  God. 
I  assure  you  solemnly  that  I  cannot  place  any 
thing  except  full  Christianity  under  my  head,  and 
be  at  peace.  I  have  been  in  the  jaws  of  death.  I 
hope  I  have  seen  enough  of  life  to  be  a  little  above 
caring  what  men  say  for  or  against  any  position  I 
may  take  up,  for  I  am  not  to  be  here  long  at  the 
longest.  You  are  not  to  be  here  long.  We  are  to 
be  gathered  home,  as  our  fathers  were,  and  we  wish 
to  go  hence  in  peace.  In  the  name  of  cool  precision, 
in  the  name  of  the  philosophy  that  dares  not  believe 
a  lie,  or  call  any  thing  that  is  obscure  clear,  it  must 


TRUE  AND   FALSE  OPTIMISM.  221 

be  declared  that  Christianity,  and  it  alone,  can  har- 
monize us  with  an  irreversible  record  of  deliberate 
sin,  with  a  God  who  is  a  thousand  consciences,  and 
with  a  conscience  that  is  a  thousand  swords.  [Ap- 
plause.] 


vm. 

A  CONSIDERATION  OF  MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR, 
BALE'S  CRITICISMS, 

THE    SEVENTY-SEVENTH    LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON    MONDAY 
LECTURESHIP,   DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE   MAY  7. 


"  QUAUB  gemma  micat,  fulvum  quae  dividit  anrom 
Aut  collo  decus,  aut  capiti;  vel  quale  per  art  era 
Inclusam  buxo,  aut  Oricia  terebintho 
Lucet  ebur." 

VIBGEL:  J£n.  x.  134. 

"  Es  ist  Nichts  schrecklicher  als  eine  thatige  Unwissenheit." 

Gk>ETHB:  Maxims,  iii.  191. 


vin. 

A  CONSIDERATION  OF  MR.  CLARKE'S  AND 
MR.  HALE'S   CRITICISMS. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

THE  River  Ilissus  in  Athens  is  a  delicious  crystal- 
line stream,  full  of  white  and  brown  pebbles,  which 
no  doubt  the  feet  of  Phocion,  and  Socrates  and  De- 
mosthenes, and  Plato  and  Aristotle,  have  touched. 
Its  ripples,  therefore,  are  more  musical  than  Apollo's 
lute ;  and  you  will  not  blame  me  for  stating  that  I 
brought  home  from  Athens  a  broad,  fair  pebble  out 
of  that  stream,  and  from  that  portion  of  its  bed, 
which,  scholars  say,  was  once  crossed  by  the  gardens 
and  walks  and  marble  colonnades  of  Aristotle's  Ly- 
ceum. I  keep  this  white  stone  now  as  a  paper-weight 
on  a  heap  of  excerpts  and  newspaper  cuttings  in- 
tended to  represent  current  misconceptions  of  Chris- 
tian truth.  Quite  a  number  of  slips  have  been 
accumulating  in  that  heap  of  late,  some  of  them 
from  Music  Hall ;  and,  since  I  am  as  proud  of  the 
specimens  I  gather  into  my  cabinet  as  ever  a  col- 
lector of  crystals  was  of  his  captured  gems,  I  wish 

225 


226  ORTHODOXY. 

to  make  you  sharers  of  my  bliss,  according-  to  Shak- 
speare's  maxim :  — 

"  When  thou  haply  seest 

Some  rare  noteworthy  object  in  thy  travel, 
Make  me  partaker  of  thy  happiness." 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. 

1.  From  this  cabinet  of  misconception  —  notice, 
I  do  not  say  of  misrepresentation  —  I  must  choose 
at  least  one  specimen  concerning  the  measureless 
theme  of  free  final  permanence  of  character,  or  the 
natural  wages  of  habitual  evil  choice.  I  hold  in  my 
hand  a  book  written  by  a  man  whom  we  all  honor 
for  his  candor  and  learning,  and  whose  vigorous  hon- 
esty in  the  political  affairs  of  this  Commonwealth 
has  more  than  once  been  a  pillar  of  fire  in  a  dark 
place.  I  mean  Mr.  Clarke,  who  lately  has  presented 
to  the  public  an  almost  semi-official  answer  to  the 
question  "What  is  a  Christian?"  I  read  in  this 
volume,  which  is  also  almost  semi-official,  and,  in  my 
opinion,  the  best  book  ever  published  in  Boston  by 
unevangelical  Christianity,  the  following  very  amaz- 
ing words  :  "  The  Orthodox  doctrine  of  future  pun- 
ishment is  exceedingly  simple.  .  .  .  The  purest  and 
best  of  men,  who  does  not  believe  the  precise  Ortho- 
dox theory  concerning  the  Trinity,  sits  in  hell  side 
by  side  with  Zingis  Khan,  who  murdered  in  cold 
blood  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  marking  his  bloody  route  by  pyramids  of 
skulls  "  (CLARKE,  Orthodoxy,  p.  357). 

Gentlemen,  that  is  a  very  interesting  specimen  in 
this  cabinet.  It  is  almost  flawless.  I  hardly  know 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  227 

how  it  could  be  better.     That  misconception  is  funda- 
mental, colossal,  ghastly,  inexcusable.     [Applause.] 

2.  But  take  another  flaming,  favorite  gem  of  mine 
from  the  same  cabinet,  and  broken  off  the  same  ledge 
of  crystalline  Boston  rock :  — 

"  The  unbaptized  child,  who  goes  to  hell  because 
of  the  original  sin  derived  from  Adam,  is  exposed  to 
God's  wrath  no  less  than  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  who 
outraged  every  law  of  God  and  man,  and  who,  says 
Machiavelli,  '  was  followed  to  the  tomb  by  the  heavy 
feet  of  his  three  dear  companions,  —  Luxury,  Simony, 
and  Cruelty.'  This  is  the  doctrine  which  every  de- 
nomination and  sect  in  Christendom,  except  the  Uni- 
tarians and  Universalists,  maintain  as  essential  to 
Orthodoxy  "  (pp.  357,  358). 

Gentlemen,  is  that  a  correct  statement?  This 
serious  assertion  is  just  about  as  correct  as  it  would 
be  to  say  that  Charles  River  flows  into  the  Mississippi. 
It  is  quite  as  correct  as  to  affirm  that  Massachusetts 
is  a  province  of  China. 

3.  You  will  allow  me,  therefore,  to  say  that  I  was 
not  greatly  surprised,  when,  a  few  weeks  ago,  I  ob- 
tained a  third  specimen  off  this  same  fruitful  ledge 
of  crystals;   or,  the  assertion   that  my  view  of  the 
Trinity,  or  the  view  of  the  New-England  theology  as 
understood  by  this  Lectureship,  is  "one  which  any 
Unitarian  can  accept "  (Mr.  CLARKE,  Daily  Adver- 
tiser, March  26).     That  statement  was  made,  how- 
ever,  before   a  full   discussion   had  been  presented 
here,  although  warning  had  been  given  not  to  judge 
the  house  while  the  scaffolding  was  up ;  and  I  be- 
lieve the  statement  is  not  reiterated  at  present. 


228  ORTHODOXY. 

4.  In  an  account  of  semi-official  discussions  at 
Music  Hall,  I  read  that  Mr.  Cook  has  given  up  the 
doctrine  of  substitution.  The  language  of  the  report 
is,  that  Mr.  Cook  comes  forward,  belonging  to  the 
same  school  of  thought  with  a  certain  evangelist,  and 
tells  us  "  that  we  must  accept  the  Orthodox  doctrine 
on  this  subject ;  and  he  says  that  no  Orthodox  man 
of  any  sense  or  any  knowledge  believes  to-day  in 
substitution"  (Report  of  Mr.  CLARKE'S  Sermon, 
"  Daily  Advertiser,"  April  30).  Another  authority 
says  that  Mr.  Cook  "  defends  the  doctrine  of  substi- 
tution by  giving  it  up "  ( Unitarian  Tract,  by  Mr. 
KIMBALL). 

Now,  what  are  the  facts  ?  New-England  theology 
makes  a  distinction  between  chastisement  and  pun- 
ishment. Even  the  Universalist  theology  insists  that 
there  is  a  difference  between  suffering  and  punish- 
ment. I  know  careless  phrases  have  been  used  by 
Orthodox  scholars ;  but  when  I  open  a  series  of  arti- 
cles published  in  u  The  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  by  writers 
of  all  denominations,  within  the  last  fifteen  years,  and 
constituting  the  best  statement  of  the  new  Orthodoxy 
that  New  England  has  yet  made, — fifteen  or  eighteen 
elaborate  communications  prepared  by  Episcopalians, 
Methodists,  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and  Congrega- 
tionalists  of  the  first  rank  in  scholarship,  —  I  find 
such  a  representative  writer,  for  instance,  as  the  re- 
vered Dr.  Whedon,  editor  of  "  The  Methodist  Quar- 
terly Review,"  a  man  probably  not  given  to  Calvinism, 
saying  this,  — 

"  The  imputation  of  the  sin  of  man,  or  his  punishment,  to 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  229 

Christ,  is  but  a  popular  conception,  justifiable  if  understood 
as  only  conceptual;  just  as  we  might  say  that  the  crime  of 
Pythias  was  imputed  to  Damon  in  order  that  we  also  might  be 
able  to  say  that  Damon  was  punished  instead  of  Pythias.  In 
strictness  of  language  and  thought,  neither  crime,  guilt,  nor 
punishment  is  personally  transferable  "  (WHEDON,  Rev.  D.D., 
Bib.  Sac.,  April,  1862,  pp.  260,  261). 

Why,  it  is  amazing  to  me  that  gentlemen  will 
quote  phrases  from  Mr.  Spurgeon,  saying  that  our 
Lord  was  punished,  and  then  come  forward  in  Bos- 
ton, and  affirm  that  Orthodoxy  holds  that  our  Lord 
was  not  innocent,  and  meet  us  with  the  charge  of 
self-contradiction  when  we  exhibit  the  truths  of  the 
Atonement  in  detail.  Ask  Mr.  Spurgeon,  or  any 
other  man  who  uses  that  word  "  punished,"  whether 
our  Lord  was  a  murderer,  a  perjurer,  a  leper,  or  a 
thief.  Ask  whether  he  does  not  believe,  as  the 
Church  has  always  believed,  whatever  its  language 
may  have  been,  that  our  Lord  was  innocent.  We  are 
now  more  careful  in  our  phraseology  than  we  once 
were ;  but  the  Church  has  always  had  the  idea  of 
Christ's  innocence,  and  never  has  asserted  that  he 
was  punished,  in  the  sense  of  suffering  pain  for  per- 
sonal blameworthiness ;  for  he  never  had  any  per- 
sonal blameworthiness.  Let  us  distinguish  ideas  from 
vocabularies.  I  admit  that  the  latter  have  been  care- 
less ;  and  it  is  one  part  of  the  joy  of  my  life  to  con- 
tribute a  little  toward  more  caution  in  the  expression 
of  truths  which  we  cannot  touch  properly,  unless  in 
that  spirit  which  Uzzah  did  not  have  when  he  touched 
the  ark,  and  for  lack  of  reverence  was  struck  dead ! 


230  ORTHODOXY. 

Andrew  Fuller  the  Baptist  scholar,  who  has  been 
called  the  Benjamin  Franklin  of  theology,  was  very 
careful  of  his  language  on  this  supreme  point;  and 
as  long  ago  as  1800  drew  in  substance  the  distinction 
between  chastisement  and  punishment.  "Real  and 
proper  punishment,"  he  wrote,  "is  not  only  the  inflic- 
tion of  natural  evil  for  the  commission  of  moral  evil, 
but  the  infliction  of  the  one  upon  the  person  who 
committed  the  other,  and  in  displeasure  against  him : 
it  not  only  supposes  criminality,  but  that  the  party 
punished  was  literally  the  criminal"  (FULLER,  AN- 
DREW,  Works,  chap.  10,  p.  34r  quoted  with  approval 
by  Professor  PARK,  Bib.  Sac.,  January,  1865,  p.  174). 

Modern  theological  science  is  substantially  a  unit 
on  this  topic,  not  in  its  vocabularies,  but  in  its  ideas. 
I  dislike  to  take  time  on  a  point  which  needs 
to  be  elaborated  nowhere  out  of  Boston;  but,  if 
you  will  allow  me  to  cite  a  school  on  which  you 
may  probably  have  looked  with  considerable  arro- 
gance,—  the  East  Windsor  Theological  Institution, 
where  the  old  school  in  New-England  theology  is  re- 
presented,— you  will  find  Professor  Lawrence  there, 
in  his  official  article  in  the  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  say- 
ing of  that  school  of  theology,  "The  old  school 
theology  speaks  freely  of  Christ  as  'suffering  the 
penalty  of  the  law,'  and  as  '  paying  our  debts.'  But 
it  never  implies  that  he  was  a  sinner,  suffering  demerits. 
'  Our  guilt  and  punishment  being,  as  it  were,  trans- 
ferred to  him,'  says  Calvin.  Edwards  says,  '  He  suf- 
ferred  as  though  guilty.'"  (LAWRENCE,  Reverend 
Professor,  of  East  Windsor  Theol.  Inst.,  on  "The  Old 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  BALE'S  CRITICISMS.  231 

School. in  N.  E.  Theol., "  Sib.  Sac.,  April,  1863,  p.  333. 
See  also  pp.  338,  339.) 

The  distinction  between  chastisement  and  punish- 
ment is  very  familiar  in  the  instruction  given  at 
Andover  in  religious  science. 

If  now,  for  using  phraseology  which  recognizes 
this  distinction  between  chastisement  and  punish- 
ment, I  may  be  accused  of  giving  up  the  doctrine  of 
substitution,  then  all  New-England  theology  is  to  be 
thus  accused ;  then  all  schools,  old  and  new,  are  to 
be  supposed  to  have  changed  their  ideas,  because 
they  have  become  more  cautious  in  their  language. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  such  to  me,  that, 
without  it,  philosophy  would  lead  by  self-evident 
truth  only  to  the  conclusion  that  we  of  all  men  are 
most  miserable,  since  we  have  sinned,  and  do  not 
know  a  way  of  escape.  There  is  to  me  such  clear- 
ness in  the  demonstration  of  our  need  of  an  Atone- 
ment, that,  if  you  say  no  Atonement  ever  has  been 
made,  philosophy  to  me  is  not  glad  tidings ;  for  it  is 
clear  tidings  of  a  necessity  not  met :  therefore,  to* 
philosophy  itself,  the  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  substi- 
tution makes  a  desert  of  life. 

5.  But  it  is  said  that  I  have  put  forward  Dean 
Stanley  as  a  representative  of  Orthodoxy,  and  that 
he  is  a  Unitarian  (Mr.  CLARKE,  Daily  Advertiser, 
April  30). 

Not  many  months  ago,  Lady  Augusta  Stanley  lay 
in  her  coffin  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  there  at  her 
side  sat  Thomas  Carlyle.  Who  had  been  her  chap- 
lain? The  American  evangelist  who  has  but  just 


232  OETHODOXY. 

left  this  city.  On  whose  invitation?  On  her  own. 
By  whose  consent  ?  By  her  husband's.  Who  told 
you  that  ?  The  American  evangelist  himself.  What 
did  he  do?  He  conducted  devotional  exercises  in 
Lady  Stanley's  sick-chamber.  You  talk  about  the 
breadth  of  Dean  Stanley's  Broad  Church  views! 
You  must  look  at  the  upper  part  of  the  breadth 
as  well  as  the  lower.  By  the  way,  speaking 
of  Carlyle,  let  me  say  that  Mr.  Ruskin  has  lately 
affirmed  that  Carlyle's  opinion  of  Darwin,  which  I 
stated  to  you  some  months  since,  "  will  probably  be 
remembered  as  long  as  any  thing  else  that  Carlyle 
ever  said."  That  is  reported,  I  beg  you  notice  I  say, 
as  coming  from  Ruskin.  According  to  written  assur- 
ances sent  to  me  by  a  literary  gentleman  of  high 
rank  who  knows  the  person  who  heard  Carlyle  ex- 
press his  opinion  of  Darwin,  there  is  every  reason  to 
trust  that  extract  as  Carlyle's  own.  Professor  Tho- 
luck  of  Halle  in  Germany  told  me  that  once  he 
was  invited  to  spend  the  winter  in  the  south  of 
Italy,  with  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  doubted  at  first 
whether  he  had  better  accept  the  invitation,  for 
fear  there  would  be  social  dissonance  on  account 
of  divergences  of  views.  "I  sought  information," 
said  Professor  Tholuck ;  "  and  from  England,  on  the 
highest  authority,  I  was  told  there  would  be  no  disso- 
nance ;  for  Carlyle  is  a  good  Christian  man."  Have 
I  not  read  what  Carlyle  says  about  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  ?  Yes ;  and  rejoice  in  it.  Have  I  not  read 
what  he  says  about  threshing  mere  straw  in  formulas 
of  belief  without  soul  behind  them?  Yes;  and 


MB.  CLAEKE'S  AND  MB.  KALE'S  CBITICISMS.  233 

thank  God  for  every  syllable  the  Prophet  of  Chelsea 
has  written  on  that  theme.  I  have  heard  also  from, 
the  lips  of  your  own  Emerson,  that  Carlyle  likes 
to  quote  his  own  father's  expressions  at  family  wor- 
ship in  old  Scotland.  I  do  not  forget  what  Carlyle 
thought  of  Sterling,  or  what  he  said  of  the  death  of 
Edward  Irving.  "  To  Frederic,  as  to  all  of  us," 
says  Carlyle,  "  it  was  flatly  inconceivable  that  intel- 
lect, moral  emotion,  could  have  been  put  into  him  by 
an  Entity  that  had  none  of  its  own  "  (Life  of  Fred- 
eric the  Great,  last  chapter).  This  language  asserts 
the  Personality  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  proves, 
therefore,  that  Carlyle  is  no  pantheist.  There  is  even 
more  between  than  in  the  lines  of  hundreds  of  pages 
that  he  has  given  to  the  world.  I  remember  that 
Essay  on  Voltaire  in  which  he  writes  explicitly :  — 

"  We  understand  ourselves  to  be  risking  no  new  assertion,  but 
simply  reporting  what  is  already  the  conviction  of  the  greatest 
in  our  age,  when  we  say,  that  cheerfully  recognizing,  gratefully 
appropriating,  whatever  Voltaire  has  proved,  or  any  other  man 
has  proved,  or  shall  prove,  the  Christian  religion,  once  here, 
cannot  again  pass  away;  that,  in  one  or  the  other  form,  it  will 
endure  through  all  tune;  that  as  in  Scripture,  so  also  in  the 
heart  of  man,  is  written,  '  The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it.'  Were  the  memory  of  this  faith  never  so  obscured, 
as,  indeed,  in  all  times,  the  coarse  passions  and  perceptions  of 
the  world  do  all  but  obliterate  it  in  the  hearts  of  most,  yet  in 
every  pure  soul,  in  every  poet  and  wise  man,  it  finds  a  new  mis- 
sionary, a  new  martyr,  till  the  great  volume  of  universal  history 
is  finally  closed,  and  man's  destinies  are  fulfilled  in  this  earth. 
'It  is  a  height  to  which  the  human  species  were  fated  and  en- 
abled to  attain;  and  from  which,  having  once  attained  it,  they 
can  never  retrograde.'  " 


234  ORTHODOXY. 

Distinguish  between  ideas  and  vocabularies,  and 
you  will  find  that  Carlyle  deserved  what  he  received 
the  other  day  from  Dean  Stanley,  a  certificate  that 
"he  never  disdained  the  traditions  of  the  Scottish 
church  and  nation."  When  I  put  in  his  lips  the 
Litany,  I  took  what  all  are  obliged  to  subscribe  who 
are  in  the  renowned  English  Church.  The  prayer- 
book,  as  well  as  the  articles,  is  subscribed,  is  it  not  ? 
Of  course  I  had  a  right  to  quote  the  flower  as  well  as 
the  root:  out  of  the  latter  grows  the  former.  I 
wished  to  indicate  what  popular  theology  is ;  and  it 
was  evidently  necessary  for  me  to  take  that  which  is 
most  before  the  people,  —  the  hallelujahs  and  the 
praises,  the  indication  of  the  popular  mind  in  wor- 
ship. I  took  the  most  overt  public  part  of  the 
Church-of-England  service  to  indicate  what  the  popu- 
lar theology  is.  Some  scribblers  have  complained  be- 
cause I  put  the  words  of  the  Litany  into  the  mouths 
of  Carlyle  and  Stanley,  and  have  thought  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  could  not  have  been 
used  with  the  same  effect.  The  words  I  cited  from 
your  Boston  critic  would  have  sounded  weak  and 
wicked,  had  I  quoted  them  alone  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  in  presence  only  of  God.  • 

But  now,  as  to  Dean  Stanley,  three  things  are  to 
be  noticed :  — 

First,  we  must  make  a  distinction  between  his 
breadth  as  an  ecclesiastical  politician  and  his  breadth 
as  a  theologian.  He  is  a  representative  of  a  national 
church  such  as  we  know  nothing  of  in  America. 
Any  gentleman  here,  directly  or  indirectly  connected 


ME.  CLARKE'S  AND  ME.  HALE'S  CEITICISMS.  235 

with  that  church,  will  allow  me  to  say  that  the  High 
Church  and  Low  Church  and  Broad  Church  are  quite 
as  sharply  antagonistic  to  each  other  as  any  of  our 
Protestant  denominations  outside  of  the  English  Es- 
tablishment. Dean  Stanley  is  the  representative  of 
this  national  church,  which  must  hold  all  kinds  of 
culture  together ;  and  his  great  principle  is  a  political 
one.  He  wishes  to  keep  these  warring  elements  from 
seceding  until  their  real  merits  can  be  distinguished 
by  time.  His  supreme  principle  is  one  of  comprehen- 
sion and  trial.  Let  these  conflicting  ideas  be  kept 
inside  the  Church,  says  Dean  Stanley ;  allow  every 
man  to  hold  any  fairly  reasonable  opinion ;  let  every 
such  opinion  have  a  place  until  its  value  is  tested  by 
time. 

This  is  a  breadth  of  ecclesiastical  policy  rather 
than  of  theology.  Dean  Stanley  as  a  theologian  is 
far  less  broad  than  Dean  Stanley  as  an  ecclesiastical 
politician.  I  am  not  discussing  whether  or  not  he  is 
to  be  justified  in  taking  that  attitude  as  to  a  national 
church.  Many  of  Dean  Stanley's  best  friends  de- 
clare that  he  ought  to  be  more  severe  in  excluding 
from  the  English  Church  some  sections  of  sentiment, 
perhaps  so  broad  that  they  hardly  come  within  the 
range  even  of  general  tolerant  Christianity.  They 
say  he  ought  to  think  more  of  the  Christian  Church 
than  of  the  national  church,  and  that  he  does  not. 
But  into  that  question  I  need  not  enter. 

In  the  next  place,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
Dean  Stanley  is  by  no  means  careless  in  his  state- 
ments as  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the 


236  ORTHODOXY. 

Atonement.  He  holds  such  views  as  Charles  Kings- 
ley  did;  and  what  Kingsley's  views  of  the  Trinity 
were,  I  showed  to  you  in  detail  the  other  morning. 
No  doubt  Charles  Kingsley  held  erratic  views  on  one 
or  two  points;  but  he  was  substantially  sound  on 
what  the  Church  of  England  regards  as  the  essen- 
tials of  Christian  truth,  and  so  surely  Stanley  is,  or 
he  would  not  be  where  he  is.  Dean  Stanley  said  not 
long  ago  in  the  chapel  at  Rugby,  —  I  have  his  lan- 
guage before  me,  —  "Thomas  Arnold's  words  con- 
stantly come  back  to  me  as  expressing  better  than 
any  thing  else  my  hopes  and  fears  for  this  life  and  for 
the  life  to  come."  Everybody  knows  Stanley  is  the 
biographer  of  Thomas  Arnold,  and  that  Thomas 
Arnold  was  a  man  of  a  large,  generous,  illumined 
nature,  and  of  great  symmetry  of  character,  but  by 
no  means  what  one  would  call  a  loose  dreamer  as  to 
the  highest  of  all  truths.  No  doubt  he  was  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word  a  liberal  believer ;  but  that 
word  "liberal"  I  use  as  infrequently  as  possible,  it 
has  such  an  amazing  resemblance  to  caoutchouc. 
Toward  the  bottom  of  the  elastic  scale  of  liberalism 
you  may  often  find  those  who  are  ready  to  answer, 
if  you  ask  what  is  a  Christian,  "  He  is  man  who  is 
always  learning,  but  never  able  to  come  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth ; "  and  that  comes  pretty  near  to 
being  the  definition  given  in  Music  Hall  the  other 
evening.  And,  if  you  ask  what  does  a  Christian 
believe,  "Why,  any  thing  that  means  nothing  in 
particular; "  and  that  comes  so  fearfully  near  to  being 
the  definition  given  in  Music  Hall,  that  I  do  not  dare 


ME.  CLARKE'S  AND  MB.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  237 

talk  about  the  lower  ranges  of  liberalism,  lest  I  seem 
to  slander  the  upper.     [Applause.] 

Now,  Thomas  Arnold  believed  something  in  partic- 
ular ;  and  Dean  Stanley  is  a  pupil,  and  professes  him- 
self to  be  theologically  an  enlarged  copy,  of  Thomas 
Arnold.  He  is  to  be  ranked  with  Kingsley  and 
Robertson  and  Milman  as  a  follower  of  Hooker,  and 
an  opponent  of  the  influences  of  Laud.  It  is  per- 
fectly amazing  to  find  the  Broad-church  party  spoken 
of  as  carrying  England  over  to*  that  style  of  unscien- 
tific liberalism  which  I  have  just  ridiculed.  Why, 
only  yesterday  I  opened  a  periodical  not  given  to  the 
theological  discussion,  and  found  the  statement,  that 
when  Emerson  came  first  to  England  many  years 
ago,  and  Carlyle  sounded  his  glories  to  such  an 
extent  that  almost  every  circle  in  the  country  was 
anxious  to  obtain  a  glimpse  of  the  Boston  poet  and 
philosopher,  the  current  feeling  was  one  of  sorrow, 
that  so  brilliant  a  man  as  Emerson,  so  lovable,  and 
so  talented,  should  nevertheless  be  afflicted  with  a 
repugnant  something,  spoken  of  in  whispers,  like 
the  small-pox,  or  the  practice  of  cannibalism:  this 
was  his  Unitarianism,  Transcendentalism,  Theodore- 
Parkerism.  "  But  then  he  cannot  be  altogether  sane," 
was  the  frequent  comment.  It  is  true  that  many 
English  people  of  position  are  Unitarians.  There  is 
a  brilliant  man  who  is  on  the  point  of  making  an 
effort  to  get  a  seat  in  Parliament  now,  who  has  long 
been  a  disciple  of  Theodore  Parker.  "  I  feel  bound 
to  add,"  my  English  authority  says,  "  that  all  with 
whom  I  have  conversed  say  that  his  religious  senti- 


'238  ORTHODOXY. 

ments  are  the  only  drawbacks  to  his  success;  but 
the  repugnance  toward  them  felt  by  the  majority 
of  voters  will  prevent  his  getting  the  seat."  The 
objection  most  offered  in  England  to  such  views  is 
the  demoralizing  effect  they  are  considered  to  have 
on  the  average  mass  of  society.  Much  of  the  polit- 
ical sentiment  here  described  I  abhor.  But,  when 
it-  is  assumed  that  all  England  is  turning  over  to 
Parker's  views,  it  is  important  to  notice  straws  like 
this,  which  show  which  way  the  wind  blows. 

But,  in  the  third  place,  Dean  Stanley  is  regarded 
in  England  and  by  scholars  generally  as  a  church  his- 
torian rather  than  a  theologian.  He  is  the  Macaulay 
of  church  historians.  But,  as  to  his  ability  as  a  theo- 
logian or  philosopher,  the  London  Times  hints  well  a 
general  opinion  in  its  criticism  on  Dean  Stanley's 
recent  address  at  St.  Andrew's  University.  It  finds 
reason  in  that  production  for  saying,  that,  if  Dean 
Stanley's  hopes  are  fulfilled,  Christendom  will  have 
unity  by  and  by,  —  "  the  unity  of  a  landscape  covered 
with  mist"  (London  Times, March  17).  The  growing 
power  of  the  scientific  method  does  not  prophesy  for 
that  style  of  unity  a  victorious  future.  But  the  Lon- 
don Times  has  usually  failed,  as  many  other  authori- 
ties have  done,  to  distinguish  between  Stanley's 
breadth  as  a  church  politician  and  his  breadth  as  a 
theologian. 

6.  There  is  one  more  glittering  specimen  in  my 
cabinet  of  misconception  to  be  noticed ;  and  then  I 
must  hasten  to  the  conclusion  of  this  exhibition  of 
curiosities,  many  of  them  fossils,  I  hope.  A  man  of 


ME.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  239 

letters,  a  philanthropist,  a  citizen  whom  we  all  honor 
for  his  own  deeds  and  for  those  of  his  fathers,  said 
last  night  in  Music  Hall :  "  They  tell  you  that  God 
the  Father  entered  into  council  with  God  the  Son 
and  God  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  that  in  their  infinite 
wisdom  they  devised  a  plan  by  which  God  the  Son 
might  meet  the  justice  of  God  the  Father,  and  that 
by  this  means  the  race  of  men  should  be  saved,  not 
from  their  sins,  but  from  the  punishment  which  their 
sins  have  justly  deserved.  Mr.  Cook  says  I  must 
not  say  that  this  is  the  substitution  of  an  innocent 
Christ  for  guilty  men.  Mr.  Boyd  says  I  must ;  and 
Dr.  Chalmers  says  I  must."  [Whatever  his  lan- 
guage, Dr.  Chalmers  does  not  mean  that  our  Lord 
was  personally  blameworthy.]  "  But  I  do  not  care 
for  the  words.  I  never  use  any  of  them  unless  I  am 
forced  to,  and  that  is  not  often.  The  point  I  would  im- 
press on  you  is,  that  all  this  middle-age  theology  turns 
on  the  assumption  that  Jesus  Christ  saves  men  from 
their  punishment  simply.  But  all  the  simpler  theolo- 
gies, all  liberal  theology,  turn  on  the  truth  that  God, 
because  he  is  God,  chooses  to  save  his  people  from 
all  sins."  (Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  May  7.) 

So  speaks  Mr.  Hale.  But  what  definition  of  sal- 
vation has  been  given  from  time  immemorial  in  idea, 
and  what  definition  has  been  given  here  especially  ? 
"  Salvation  is  permanent  deliverance  from  both  the 
love  and  the  guilt  of  sin."  Without  deliverance 
from  both  these,  peace  with  our  whole  environment 
is  a  natural  impossibility.  To  assume  that  what  is 
called  evangelical  theology  is  not  careful  to  deliver 


240  ORTHODOXY. 

men  from  sin,  as  well  as  from  the  guilt  of  it,  is  as 
accurate  as  to  say  that  Plymouth  Rock  will  float,  or 
that  Bunker-hill  Monument  is  the  North  Pole.  I  am 
patriotically  pained  by  these  astounding  stretches  of 
vapor  in  Boston.  If  these  are  the  clear  heights  of 
the  landscape  which  contains  the  population  opposed 
to  evangelical  truth,  what  are  the  lower  portions? 
If  these  are  the  sunlit  peaks,  what  are  the  marshes? 
I  have  heard  of  a  miraculous  London  fog  so  dense 
that  you  could  not  see  a  street-lamp  when  standing 
under  it,  though  I  never  saw  such  a  fog.  I  have 
seen  one,  however,  in  which  you  could  not  see  one 
street-lamp  from  another ;  and  I  have  heard  of  one 
which  could  be  cut  into  slices  with  any  delicate  edge 
of  steel.  But  I  need  all  these  styles  of  fogs  to  give 
me  a  perfect  symbol  for  that  style  of  vapor  which 
must  brood  over  the  lower  lands,  if  these  amazing 
statements  are  the  vapor  brooding  over  the  sunlit 
peaks.  To  be  perfectly  frank,  and  to  speak  kindly, 
evangelical  scholars  do  regard  these  representations 
as  astounding;  and  we  think,  if  people  believe 
them,  — which  we  hope  they  do  not,  —  those  people 
who  do  believe  them  are  a  heavily  befogged  popula- 
tion. 

7.  But,  my  friends,  all  the  peaks  in  this  landscape 
in  which  I  have  been  showing  you  a  few  heights  are 
not  thus  wreathed  in  vapor.  Go  to  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, which  has  had  reason  to  think  on  this  subject  as 
no  other  college  in  the  land  has  done.  I  turn  to 
the  words  of  the  present  preacher  to  the  university ; 
and  I  find  him  saying  that  he  "remembers  in  his 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  241 

boyhood  a  type  of  Calvinism  as  cold  as  it  was  bitter, 
in  which  spirit  was  wholly  congealed  into  dogma." 
I  should  not  admit  quite  that  Jonathan  Edwards, 
who  spoke  of  "  the  soul  of  a  true  Christian  as  such  a 
little  white  flower  as  we  see  in  the  spring  of  the  year, 
low  and  humble  on  the  ground,  opening  its  bosom  to 
receive  the  pleasant  beams  of  the  sun's  glory,  rejoi- 
cing, as  it  were,  in  a  calm  rapture,  diffusing  around  a 
sweet  fragrance,  standing  peacefully  and  lovingly  in 
the  midst  of  other  flowers  round  about,  all  in  like 
manner  opening  their  bosoms  to  drink  in  the  light  of 
the  sun  "  (President  EDWARDS'S  works,  vol.  i.  pp.  61, 
62),  —  I  should  hardly  concede  that  this  Edwards, 
who  might  have  been  the  first  poet  of  his  nation,  if  he 
had  not  chosen  to  be  its  first  theologian,  and  who,  if  a 
man  ever  was  a  saint,  was  one,  had  wholly  congealed 
his  religion  into  a  dogma.  There  is  a  law  of  devel- 
opment somewhere  in  religious  history:  so  we  heard 
yesterday  from  Professor  Peirce  himself.  If  there  is 
a  better  Orthodoxy,  it  has  been  developed  out  of 
something  behind  it.  It  was  the  old  school  Ortho- 
doxy that  took  Charles  I.  by  the  throat,  and  broke  his 
neck.  It  was  the  old  school  Orthodoxy  that  fled  from 
England  in  times  of  the  icy  breath  of  persecution, 
and  that  planted  the  common-school  system  in  the 
rocky  soil  of  New  England.  We  had  stern  work  to 
do ;  and  it  is  perhaps  natural  that  some  stern  things 
were  said  in  stern  days.  But  this  very  preacher  of 
the  renowned  university  yonder  goes  on  to  say,  — 
and  here  we  rise  out  of  the  vapor ;  here,  thank  God ! 
is  a  sunlit  peak :  — 


242  ORTHODOXY. 

"  What  now  terms  itself  Calvinism  is  a  free,  generous, 
earnest,  philanthropic  development  of  the  religious  life,  with 
which  I  for  one  feel  the  most  hearty  and  loving  sympathy 
[applause] ;  nor  do  I  believe  that,  under  its  auspices,  New- 
England  Congregationalism  would  have  been  rent  in  twain,  as 
it  was  early  in  the  present  century."  [Applause.] 

Remember  that  these  are  not  my  words,  but  those 
of  the  Plummer  Professor  of  Morals,  and  Preacher  to 
Harvard  University :  — 

"  Lowest  of  all  in  the  scale,  yet  the  very  thing  we  need  most 
to  shun,  is  the  dogmatism  of  mere  negations.  As  a  Trinitarian, 
I  should,  as  I  desire  to  do  now,  worship  the  Father,  love  the 
Son,  and  pray  for  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  mere  anti- Trinitarian- 
ism  cannot  by  any  possibility  make  me  reverent  or  devout ;  and 
a  ministry  of  negations,  even  though  the  negatives  be  all  justi- 
fiable, is  utterly  fruitless,  nay,  worse,  harmful,  demoralizing, 
contemptible.  A  church  which  lays  intense  emphasis  on  what 
it  does  not  believe,  and  whose  members  know  not  how  to  ex- 
press any  article  of  faith  without  a  negative  particle,  is  a  nur- 
sery of  scepticism  and  infidelity,  and  nothing  better.  At  the 
same  time  there  is  no  intolerance  so  bitter  and  scornful  as  that 
of  the  so-called  churches  whose  faith  consists  in  not  believing." 
[Applause.] 

So  bravely  spoke  symmetry,  strength,  and  devout- 
ness  of  soul,  in  Professor  Peabody,  and  so  bravely 
were  these  words  published  (  Unitarian  Review,  Janu- 
ary, 1877,  pp.  72-74). 

8.  Not  far  from  Bunker  Hill  there  is  another  sun- 
lit peak ;  and,  now  that  I  am  on  this  theme,  I  must 
point  out  how  noticeable  that  summit  yonder  is, 
crowned  with  light. 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  BALE'S  CRITICISMS.  243 

"  Professor  Park,"  writes  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  E.  Ellis,  in 
his  Half-Century  of  Unitarian  C6ntroversy,  "tried  the  whole 
resources  of  his  amazingly  acute  and  skilful  mind  upon  these 
problems.  We  trust  all  our  readers  have  perused  that  Conven- 
tion Discourse  of  the  Andover  professor,  to  which  we  have  more 
than  once  referred.  We  regard  it,  on  the  score  of  what  it  bold- 
ly affirms,  and  of  what  it  so  significantly  implies,  when  taken  in 
connection  with  its  wonderful  beauty  of  style,  and  its  marvellous 
subtilty  of  analysis,  as  the  most  noteworthy  contribution  which 
Orthodoxy  has  made  to  the  literature  of  New  England  for  the 
last  half-century.  That  single  discourse  would  win  fame  for 
any  preacher"  (pp.  385,  386). 

"  It  may  be,  that  something  will  be  offered  to  us  as  Ortho- 
doxy which  we  shall  pronounce  to  be  better  far  than  Unitarian- 
ism,  —  something  which  we  can  receive  with  the  same  sympathy 
of  soul  and  cordiality  of  heart  with  which  we  read  the  writ- 
ings of  those  who  are  constructing  the  new  theology  from  the 
ruins  of  the  old. 

"  We  look  with  sincere  and  unprejudiced  interest  to  the  spec- 
ulative and  scholarly  labors  of  the  advanced  minds  in  Orthodox 
communions.  May  God's  blessing  be  on  their  labors,  to  keep 
them  loyal  to  him,  to  Christ,  and  to  the  everlasting  gospel  of 
grace  and  redemption.  If  the  new  theology  shall  prove  to  be 
so  much  truer  and  better  than  '  Unitarianism '  as  to  obliterate 
the  sect  whose  visible  increase  it  does  withstand,  we  are  ready 
to  welcome  it "  (pp.  391,  402). 

Gentlemen,  that  is  sunlight;  and  these  fogs  lie  far 
below  this  sky-kissed  peak. 

9.  Open  history  as  it  stands  recorded  in  the  latest 
book  written  on  the  first  century  of  our  republic, — a 
set  of  essays  by  such  men  as  Presidents  Woolsey  and 
Barnard,  Francis  A.  Walker,  Professor  T.  Sterry 
Hunt,  Professor  Sumner,  E.  P.  Whipple,  and  others ; 
and  turn  to  Mr.  Whipple's  Essay  on  American  Litera- 


244  ORTHODOXY. 

ture,  and  you  will  read,  —  this  is  not  written  for  a 
partisan  purpose,  —  "  The  theological  protest  against 
Unitarianism  was  made  by  some  of  the  most  power- 
ful minds  and  learned  scholars  in  the  country,  —  by 
Stuart,  Park,  Edwards,  Barnes,  Robinson,  Lyman 
Beecher,  and  the  Alexanders,  not  to  mention  fifty 
others.  The  thought  of  these  men  still  controls  the 
theological  opinion  of  the  country  ;  and  their  works 
are  much  more  extensively  circulated,  and  exert  a 
greater  practical  influence,  than  the  writings  of  such 
men  as  Channing,  Norton,  Dewey,  Emerson,  and 
Parker"  (The,  First  Century  of  the  Republic,  p.  372). 
What  is  the  summary  of  all  this  ? 

1.  That  there  is  manhood  left,  and  clear  thought, 
on  both  sides,  and  that,  when  the  great  peaks  are 
seen,  they  do  not  scold  each  other,  or  the  azure  above 
them,  but  are  reverently  looking  into  each  other's 
faces,  asking   how  brotherhood  under  one  sky  can 
be  brought  about  in  consistency  with  clearness  of 
thought. 

2.  That  the  vapors  of   misconception,  the   dense 
fogs  which  have  made  so  many  of  us  shy  of  each 
other,  are  unworthy  of  scholarship  of  the  first  rank. 
[Applause.] 

3.  That  if  such  presentations  of  religious  truth  as 
are  now  regarded,  and  as  in  substance  always  have 
been  regarded,  as  evangelical,  had  been  in  explicit  as 
well  as  implicit  use  fifty  or  eighty  years  ago,  God's 
house   would  not    have    been    divided   in   Eastern 
Massachusetts. 

4.  That,  if  there  was  no  reason  for  the  division  of 


MK.  CLAKKE'S  AND  ME.  BALE'S  CEITICISMS.  245 

the  house  on  the  ground  of  such  presentations  as 
are  now  called  evangelical,  there  is  no  longer  any 
ground,  in  view  of  such  presentations,  for  the  house 
continuing  to  be  divided  against  itself.  [Applause.] 


THE  LECTUKE. 

It  is  a  famous  story  concerning  the  Greek  general 
Brasidas,  that  he  looked  out  one  morning  upon  the 
host  that  was  attacking  the  city  he  was  set  to  defend, 
and  said,  "  Victory  is  ours ;  for  I  see  that  the  spears 
in  the  files  of  the  enemy  are  not  in  line.  The  ranks 
yonder  are  so  illy  trained,  that  their  weapons  will 
become  sources  of  suicide  before  the  sun  shall  set." 
Fasten  your  attention,  gentlemen,  on  the  quivering 
spears  of  the  host  who  attack  self-evident  truth  in  its 
relations  to  that  central  Christian  doctrine  which  we 
call  the  Atonement.  My  purpose  is  not  controver- 
sial, but  practical.  I  speak  in  the  name  of  axioms 
only,  and  I  have  labored  up  to  our  present  point 
of  view  with  the  hope  of  convincing  you  that  the 
converging  admissions  of  all  who  are  good  ethical 
scholars  prove  the  necessity  of  a  great  arrangement, 
not  made  by  man,  to  secure  his  harmonization  with 
his  entire  environment. 

It  was  an  occasion  on  which  history  will  look  back 
with  interest  in  this  city,  when  James  Freeman 
Clarke  stood  on  the  platform  of  Theodore  Parker,  in 
the  absence  of  the  latter  in  Italy,  and  criticised  the 
system  of  Parker,  as  Dorner  the  great  German  theo- 
logian does,  for  underrating  the  significance  of  the 


246  ORTHODOXY. 

fact  of  sin.  James  Freeman  Clarke  took  up  his  posi- 
tion on  the  ground  of  self-evident  truth.  He  planted 
himself  upon  axioms.  Like  a  scholar,  he  made  his 
first  appeal  to  self-evident  propositions.  Now,  I  am 
this  morning  to  put  under  the  lenses  of  ethical  sci- 
ence a  few  of  the  admissions  of  Mr.  Clarke,  which 
are  not  very  unlike  the  propositions  I  have  been 
defending  here  in  the  name  of  axioms,  and  show  you 
just  whither  these  self-evident  propositions  lead.  In 
order  that  I  may  not  be  accused  of  misrepresenting 
Mr.  Clarke,  you  will  allow  me  to  read  an  extract 
here  of  the  length  of  a  page,  — 

"We  think  that  if  we  analyze  the  feeling  which  the  con- 
science gives  us  concerning  the  consequences  of  wrong-doing, 
it  is  this  :  first,  conscience  demands  reparation  to  the  injured 
party  ;  second,  it  demands  punishment  as  a  satisfaction  to  be 
made  to  the  law  of  right,  and  this  suffering  to  be  accepted  as 
just  by  the  guilty  party  ;  and,  thirdly,  it  declares  that  guilt 
should  produce  an  alienation  or  separation  between  the  guilty 
party  and  those  who  are  not  guilty.  A  man  hitherto  respected 
and  trusted  by  society  commits  some  great  breach  of  trust,  and 
robs  the  community.  Conscience  requires  that  he  should  make 
atonement  to  those  he  has  injured,  by  restitution;  to  the  law  of 
right  which  he  has  offended,  by  suffering  some  punishment ; 
and  to  honorable  men  by  keeping  out  of  their  way. 

"  This,  which  the  conscience  teaches  of  an  injury  done  to 
man,  it  also  teaches  of  an  injury  done  to  God.  The  offence 
against  man  is  a  crime ;  the  offence  against  God  is  a  sin.  For 
a  crime  the  conscience  requires  restitution,  punishment  with 
confession,  and  alienation  from  the  good,  which  is  shame:  for 
a  sin  the  conscience  requires,  in  like  manner,  restitution,  pun- 
ishment, and  alienation.  It  merely  transfers  to  God's  justice 
the  ideas  of  atonement  which  human  justice  has  given  to  it.  ... 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  247 

"  There  is,  however,  a  difficulty  in  believing  that  we  can  be 
forgiven.  This  difficulty  is  in  the  conscience  ;  and,  — 

"  (a)  To  say  there  is  no  difficulty  will  not  remove  it. 

"  (5)  To  say  that  repentance  and  good  works  are  enough  will 
not  remove  it. 

"  (c)  To  say  that  God  is  merciful  will  not  remove  it  ;  for  the 
difficulty  lies  in  the  conscience,  which  declares  that  every  sin  is,  — 

"1.  An  injury  done  to  God. 

"  2.  An  injury  to  the  moral  universe  ;  inasmuch  as  it  is  an 
example  of  evil,  and  a  defiance  of  right. 

"3.  An  injury  to  ourselves,  by  putting  us  away  from  God, 
the  source  of  life,  and  alienating  us  from  him. 

"  The  inward  voice  of  conscience  is  always  saying  that  God 
ought  not  to  forgive  us  without  some  reparation  made  for  the  injury 
done  to  himself,  to  the  universe,  and  to  ourselves."  (CLAKKE, 
Orthodoxy,  pp.  246-248.) 

This  is  not  an  evangelical  author.  Here  is 
straightforward  adherence,  thus  far,  to  the  plain 
inferences  from  the  great  natural  operations  of  eon- 
science.  Up  to  this  point,  there  is  no  parting  com- 
pany in  linked  scholarship  all  through  the  world; 
and  Mr.  Clarke  knows  there  is  not. 

"  Conscience  is  always  saying  that  God  ought  not 
to  forgive  us."  God  always  does  what  he  ought  to 
do.  Conscience  does  not  tell  Munchausen  tales. 
These  laws,  by  which  we  know  how  to  harmonize 
ourselves  with  our  environment,  so  far  forth  it  is 
merely  human,  are  one  and  the  same  with  the  moral 
laws  which  sweep  through  the  universe,  and  reveal 
to  us,  therefore,  how  we  are  to  obtain  harmonization 
with  that  wider  environment. 

But  now,  having  gone  thus  far,  how  does  Mr. 
Clarke  escape  from  the  conclusion  which  follows  very 


248  ORTHODOXY. 

naturally  from  these  propositions  of  ethical  science  ? 
Why,  by  denying  the  unity  of  the  moral  law !  This 
is  his  language :  "  God's  justice  is  not  like  man's." 
Now,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  that  is  true ;  but  when 
you  interrogate  conscience,  and  find  it  always  pro- 
claiming that  something  ought  to  be,  that  is  an  exhi- 
bition, not  of  man's  justice,  but  of  God's  justice.  I 
put  this  to  any  scholar,  —  to  Mr.  Clarke  himself,  — 
whether  Bishop  Butler,  the  best  student  of  conscience 
in  modern  times,  would  justify  him  in  saying  that 
what  the  inward  voice  of  conscience  "  always  "  says 
has  not  in  it  a  revelation  of  God.  Why,  it  is  one  of 
Mr.  Clarke's  teachings,  that  conscience  has  in  it  a 
something  in  us,  but  not  of  us,  —  something  really 
Divine.  It  is  held  by  the  acutest  scholarship  that  the 
Light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world  is  one  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  shed  forth  from 
our  ascended  Lord.  Go  to  your  Dorner  and  Marten- 
sen  and  Rothe,  and  all  the  best  students  of  religious 
science,  from  the  side  of  ethics  and  evangelical  truth, 
and  you  will  find  them  rejoicing  to  illustrate  in  all 
detail, "and  with  the  full  radiance  of  philosophy  as 
well  as  of  evangelical  learning,  the  truth  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  the  present  Christ ;  and  they  identify 
it  with  the  innermost  holiest  of  conscience.  [Ap- 
plause.] Now,  I  affirm,  that  the  moral  law  is  a  part 
of  the  natural  law,  and  that  law  is  a  unit  throughout 
the  universe ;  and  that  therefore  we  cannot  escape 
from  the  consequences  of  such  an  admission  as  this, 
that  the  inward  voice  of  conscience  always  says  that 
God  "  ought  not "  to  forgive  us,  except  on  a  threefold 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AND  MR.  BALE'S  CRITICISMS.  249 

condition,  by  simply  saying  "  God's  justice  is  not  like 
man's."  The  ideas  of  the  Atonement  drawn  from  our 
human  experience,  Mr.  Clarke  says,  "  are  essentially 
false  "  (p.  247).  But,  if  the  ideas  that  come  to  us 
from  the  moral  natural  law  are  essentially  false,  how 
is  it  that  we  do  not  fall  into  scepticism  about  the 
physical  natural  laws  ?  We  know  that  law  is  a  unit ; 
and  that  therefore  this  earth,  although  an  atom  in 
immensity,  is  immensity  itself  in  the  revelation  of 
truth.  We  believe  in  the  unity  of  law.  The  law 
of  gravitation  is  the  same  here,  and  in  Orion,  and 
the  Seven  Stars.  Tell  me  what  the  moral  law  is 
here,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is  in  the  Unseen 
Holy.  It  is  disloyalty  of  the  most  extreme  sort  to 
the  scientific  method,  to  endeavor  to  escape  from  any 
proposition  by  denying  the  unity  of  the  moral  law ; 
for  the  unity  and  universality  of  law  are  among  the 
most  haughty  and  irrefutable  teachings  of  all  science. 
[Applause.] 
It  is  admitted,  then,  by  Mr.  Clarke :  — 

1.  That  conscience  demands  reparation  to  the  in- 
jured party. 

2.  That  it  demands  punishment  as  a  satisfaction  to 
the  law  of  right. 

3.  That  this  suffering  is  to  be  accepted  as  just  by 
the  guilty  party. 

4.  That  guilt  should  produce  a  separation  between 
the  guilty  and  those  who  are  not  guilty. 

5.  That  what  the  conscience  teaches  of  an  injury 
done  to  man,  it  also  teaches  of  an  injury  done  to 
God. 


250  ORTHODOXY. 

6.  That  offence  against  man  is  a  crime,  and  that 
against  God  is  a  sin. 

7.  That  conscience  transfers  to  God's  justice  the 
ideas  of  Atonement  which  human  justice  has  given 
to  it. 

8.  That,  without   other  light  than  that  of  con- 
science, there  is  a  difficulty  in  believing  that  we  can 
be  forgiven. 

9.  That  to  say  there  is  no  difficulty  will  not  re- 
move it. 

10.  That  to  say  repentance  and  good  works  are 
enough  will  not  remove  it. 

11.  That  to  say  that  God  is  merciful  will  not  re- 
move it. 

12.  That  the  difficulty  is  in  the  conscience,  and 
that  the  inward  voice  is  always  saying  that  God  ought 
not  to  forgive  us  without  some  reparation  made  for 
the  injury  done  to  himself,  to  the  universe,  and  to 
ourselves. 

13.  Theodore  Parker  admitted  this  supreme  fact 
as  to  the  natural  operations  of  conscience  (Theism, 
last  discourse). 

14.  All  established  ethical  science  asserts  this  fact 
as  an  inevitable  inference  from  intuition,  instinctive 
belief,  and  the  experience  of  man  age  after  age. 

With  the  emphasis  of  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  a 
scholar  whom  I  suppose  to  be  the  best  representative 
of  the  learning  of  unevangelical  Christianity  in  this 
country,  a  professor  who  lives  not  a  hundred  miles 
from  Boston,  said  to  me  in  the  Athenseum  Library 
lately,  without  any  cross-questioning  from  me, "  There 


ME.  CLARKE'S  AND  MB.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  251 

is  a  difficulty  in  conscience  as  to  our  peace,  when 
we  once  have  sinned ;  and  that  difficulty  in  the  struc- 
ture of  human  nature  has  sustained  the  doctrine  of 
the  vicarious  Atonement,  before  the  attacks  of  phi- 
losophy, century  after  century."  He  seemed  to  think 
that  he  was  pointing  to  a  proof-text  of  not  much 
consequence ;  but  to  me  this  human  nature,  the  seri- 
ous volume  he  thus  put  aside  in  order  to  read  some 
more  authoritative  proof-text  out  of  the  Scriptures, 
was  itself  the  oldest  scripture ;  was  that  scripture 
in  harmony  with  which  all  other  scripture  must  be 
interpreted ;  was,  in  short,  the  supreme  although 
not  all-sufficing  revelation  of  God  by  being  a  revela- 
tion of  the  unity  of  the  moral  law, — the  same  yester- 
day, to-day,  and  forever. 

15.  All  these  admissions  point  to  the  necessity  of 
an  Atonement. 

16.  But  Clarke  and  Parker,  and  the  schools  of 
thought  they  represent,  deny  this  necessity. 

17.  They  do  this,  and  they  can  do  this,  only  by 
denying  explicitly  or  implicitly  the  universality  of 
law. 

18.  The  affirmation  is  made,  that  the  ideas  we  draw 
from  what  conscience  is  saying  constantly  are  essentially 
false. 

We  must  give  all  the  intuitions  supreme  authority 
in  our  religious  science.  The  intuitions  of  con- 
science, which  prove  the  philosophical  accuracy  of 
distinctively  biblical  evangelical  ideas  must  have  no 
authority  in  our  religious  science  ! 

Here  is  the  supreme  self-contradiction  in  Theodore 


252  OBTHODOXY. 

Parker's  system  and  in  every  similar  scheme  of 
thought.  Such  systems  evade  the  challenge  which 
Julius  Miiller  and  Dorner  accept,  to  follow  up  this 
inner  voice  of  conscience,  and  receive  the  testimony 
of  all  intuition,  instinctive  belief,  and  experiment, 
whithersoever  they  lead.  It  is  admitted  that  con- 
science affirms  that  God  ought  not  to  harmonize  us 
with  our  entire  environment  without  a  great  arrange- 
ment which  exhibits  at  once  his  love  and  his  justice, 
What  ought  to  be  will  be.  By  and  by  it  will  be 
seen  that  we  ought  not  to  deny  the  unity  of  the 
moral  law,  and  so  we  shall  not.  The  philosophy  is 
coming  that  will  be  true  to  all  self-evident  truth, 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  and  will  be  liberal 
enough  to  look  into  the  thirty-two  points  of  the 
azure  before  it  decides  on  any  proposition,  great 
or  small.  [Applause.]  When  that  day  comes,  this 
inner  voice  will  be  left  to  its  proper  authority ;  and 
the  necessity  of  the  Atonement  will  be  an  inference 
from  exact  ethical  science.  Mr.  Clarke  says  implicit- 
ly that  the  ideas  we  draw  from  what  conscience  is 
always  saying  to  us  ought  to  be,  are  essentially  false. 
I  affirm  that  this  denial  of  the  authority  of  conscience 
in  its  innermost  voice  is  unscientific  on  Mr.  Clarke's 
part,  and  on  the  part  of  all  that  school  of  theology 
which  will  not  harmonize  itself  with  the  supreme 
fact  of  the  Atonement.  [Applause.]  I  maintain 
that  to  say  that  the  ideas  we  draw  from  the  inmost 
holiest  of  conscience  mislead  us  in  religious  research 
is  to  deny  the  unity  and  the  universality  of  law,  and 
to  shut  the  eyes  to  a  part  of  the  kight  that  lighteth 


MR.  CLARKE'S  AXD  ME.  HALE'S  CRITICISMS.  253 

every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world,  and  so  is  at 
once  unscientific  and  irreligious.  Here  Orthodoxy 
and  the  Scripture  part  company  with  loose  thought, 
and  keep  company  with  conscience  and  science. 
[Applause.] 


IX. 

SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND, 

TEE    SEVENTY-EIGHTH     LECTURE     IN     THE    BOSTON    MONDAY 
LECTURESHIP,   DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE   MAY  14. 


"Nescire  autem,  quid  antea,  quam  natus  sis,   acciderit,  id  est 
semper  ease  puerum."  —  CICKBO:  Or,  34. 

"Ich  bin  der  Geist  der  stets  verneint." 

GOETHE:  Faust. 


IX. 
SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

EMERSON  says  that  the  poorest  poem  is  better 
than  the  best  criticism  upon  it ;  and  so  we  may  say 
that  the  poorest  really  conscientious  life  is  incalcu- 
lably better  than  the  acutest  worldly  sneer  concern- 
ing it.  Men  outside  the  Church,  when  asked  to  unite 
with  it,  sometimes  complain  that  there  are  many 
stunted,  fruitless  growths  in  the  Church.  Poor  native 
spiritual  endowments  in  Christians  are  the  result  of 
poor  soil  in  which  they  grow ;  and  the  world  that 
sneers  is  itself  the  soil.  It  will  be  noticed,  that,  as  I 
am  not  in  charge  of  any  church,  I  have  not  the 
slightest  personal  interest  at  stake  in  any  thing  I 
may  say  of  the  value  of  church-membership.  But 
if,  in  a  free  church  in  a  free  state,  I  utter  a  single 
word  on  that  now  timely  and  always  greatly  sugges- 
tive theme,  I  shall  of  course  be  met  in  some  enlight- 
ened quarters  with  the  profound  remark,  that  all  the 
effort  that  has  been  made  in  Boston  this  winter  has 
been  incited  by  a  desire  to  pay  church-debts.  Well, 
that  is  a  good  object.  "  Owe  no  man  any  thing  "  is  a 

257 


258  ORTHODOXY. 

divine  maxim.  An  obscure  infidel  paper  in  this  city 
shrewdly  judges  that  the  entire  effort  has  been  in- 
tended to  fill  up  the  membership  of  the  evangelical 
churches.  The  Springfield  Republican  said  the  other 
day  that  the  Boston  Index  would  find  something 
mean  and  atrocious  in  the  proposition  that  two  and 
two  make  four,  if  that  statement  were  a  part  of  the 
Apostles'  Creed. 

Every  true  church  is  a  contract,  not  between  two 
parties  only,  but  three.  It  is  not  only  an  agreement 
of  men  with  men,  but  of  men  with  God.  In  dis- 
banding a  church,  men  alone  cannot  annul  the  con- 
tract. This  is  the  scholarly  idea  of  the  bond  of 
Christians  in  fellowship  with  each  other  and  with  an 
invisible  Head.  Thus  the  Christians  of  the  world 
are  really  and  confessedly  members  of  a  theocracy. 
You  think  Cromwell's  and  Milton's  dream  of  a  the- 
ocracy failed.  Many  an  archangel  pities  you ;  and  all 
the  deep  students  of  science  among  men  smile,  if  you 
say  this  seriously.  God  governs ;  and  his  kingship  is 
no  pretence.  Our  best  hope  for  America  is,  that  like 
every  other  part  of  the  universe,  it  is  a  theocracy. 
A  true  church  is  the  outward  form  among  men  of 
God's  kingdom  in  human  history ;  and  it  illustrates 
his  kingdom  in  all  worlds. 

"We  must  look  on  every  true  church  as  really  a 
divine  institution ;  for  it  is  a  contract  with  the  unseen 
Power  that  is  filling  the  world,  just  as  the  magnetic 
currents  of  the  globe  fill  all  the  needles  on  it.  Our 
Lord  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come ;  and  in  all  true 
believers  he  is  as  much  present  as  the  magnetic  cur- 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  259 

rents  of  the  globe  are  in  the  balancing  needles  that 
point  out  the  north  pole  rightly,  if  they  are  true  to 
the  currents  that  are  in  them,  but  not  of  them.  The 
Church  is  our  Lord's  body ;  the  Church  is  our  Lord's 
temple ;  the  Church  brings  every  true  believer  into 
contact  with  the  deepest  inmost  of  our  Lord's  pres- 
ent life  in  the  world ;  and  this  is  the  supreme  reason 
for  uniting  with  it.  It  is  painfully  evident  here,  I 
hope,  that  I  am  speaking  of  a  true  church,  and  not  of 
a  Sunday  club. 

Experience  has  shown  that  most  men  who  do  not 
unite  with  the  Church  drop  away  from  their  early 
religious  life.  The  two  great  reasons  for  uniting 
with  a  true  Church  are,  that  you  are  likely  to  grow 
more  inside  the  Church  than  out  of  it,  and  that  you 
can  probably  do  more  good  in  it  than  out  of  it. 

To  which  church  do  I  ask  you  to  join  yourselves  ? 
I  wish  you  could  find  out.  Am  I  making  a  party 
plea  ?  I  wish  you  would  ascertain  on  which  side  it  is 
made.  I  know,  perhaps,  five  hundred  young  men 
who  are  members  of  churches ;  but  I  do  not  know 
of  twenty  of  them  to  which  evangelical  church  they 
belong,  nor  do  I  care.  It  is  not  a  partisan  plea  I 
am  making  in  asking  you  to  become  a  member  of  the 
visible  church ;  and,  if  you  are  a  member  of  the  true 
invisible  church,  you  will  assuredly  wish  to  aid  in 
making  some  part  of  the  visible  church  a  true  church. 

But  you  say  that  creeds  are  long.  They  are  quite 
short  in  some  places,  although  they  are  deep.  Not  a 
few  newspapers  have  lately  cited  a  portion  of  the 
Andover  creed,  which  the  professors  there  sign. 


260  ORTHODOXY. 

That  is  in  form  a  very  different  creed  from  the  one 
that  belongs  to  the  Andover  Chapel  Church.  The 
public  does  not  seem  to  know  that  the  detailed  state- 
ment or  confession  which  the  professors  may  very 
well  be  called  on  to  subscribe  is  a  different  thing 
from  that  statement  of  essentials  which  Andover 
puts  into  a  church  creed.  The  Andover  Chapel 
Church  creed  is  hardly  longer  than  my  hand  is  broad ; 
but  it  is  as  deep  as  any  rift  in  the  granite  that  goes 
to  the  core  of  the  world.  The  best  church  creeds 
include  great  essentials,  and  no  more.  I  think  now 
especially  of  the  short  creed  in  the  Yale  College 
Church,  written  by  President  D  wight,  not  very  wide, 
but  fathomlessly  deep.  These  are  simply  the  creeds 
which  you  wish  to  make  the  basis  of  your  action, 
and  therefore  may  well  make  the  basis  of  your  pro- 
fession. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  the  creed  which  the  American 
evangelist,  who  will  soon  lead  our  devotions,  sub- 
scribed twenty-one  years  ago  in  Boston.  That  con- 
fession of  faith  has  by  the  Divine  blessing  amounted 
to  something  in  the  world.  As  a  ray  of  keen  light 
for  others,  our  evangelist  will  allow  me,  in  his  pres- 
ence, to  read,  what  perhaps  he  never  has  seen,  the 
record  on  the  church  books,  of  his  examination  in 
that  house  of  God  yonder  in  which  he  first  resolved 
to  do  his  duty  :  — 

"  No.  1079.  Dwight  L.  Moody.  Boards  43  Court  Street. 
Has  been  baptzied.  First  awakened  on  the  10th  of  May. 
Became  anxious  about  himself.  Saw  himself  a  sinner-;  and 
sin  now  seems  hateful,  and  holiness  desirable.  Thinks  he  has 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  261 

repented.  Has  purposed  to  give  up  sin.  Feels  dependent 
upon  Christ  for  forgiveness.  Loves  the  Scriptures.  Prays. 
Desires  to  be  useful.  Religiously  educated.  Been  in  the  city 
a  year.  From  Northfield,  this  State.  Is  not  ashamed  to  be 
known  as  a  Christian.  Eighteen  years  old. 

"  No.  1131.  March  12,  1856.  Thinks  he  has  made  some 
progress  since  he  was  here  before,  —  at  least  in  knowledge. 
Has  maintained  his  habits  of  prayer,  and  reading  the  Bible. 
Believes  God  will  hear  his  prayers.  Is  fully  determined  to 
adhere  to  the  cause  of  Christ  always.  Feels  that  it  would  be 
very  bad  if  he  should  join  the  church,  and  then  turn.  Must 
repent  of  sin,  and  ask  forgiveness  for  Christ's  sake.  Will  never 
give  up  his  hope,  or  love  Christ  less,  whether  admitted  to  the 
church  or  not.  His  prevailing  intention  is  to  give  up  his  will 
to  God. 

"  Admitted  May  4,  1856." 

That  is  a  most  moving  record.  Gentlemen,  I  hold 
that  this  is  an  examination  that  no  church  need  feel 
ashamed  of;  and  the  results  of  it  are  of  the  same 
character. 

The  Christian  ordinances  of  baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper  you  do  not  approach  closely  unless 
you  come  into  the  Church.  In  close  contact  with 
illumined  souls  there  is  a  power  which  will  come  to 
you  nowhere  outside  of  God's  house.  Why  is  it  that 
there  is  such  strange  influence  exerted  upon  itself  by 
a  great  assembly  all  of  one  mind  ?  Go  to  the  little 
gatherings  where  some  men  of  the  class  that  neglect 
God's  house  spend  their  Sundays,  —  fire-engine  rooms 
and  the  secret  clubs  for  drinking,  —  and  all  the  senti- 
ment runs  one  way  there.  Such  men  are  like  eels  in 
pools  of  the  muddy  sort,  and  often  come  to  think  that 
their  pool  is  the  whole  ocean.  You  are  easily  trans- 


262  ORTHODOXY. 

fused  with  the  spirit  of  any  company  that  moves  all 
one  way.  Put  yourselves  into  the  crystalline  springs 
and  streams.  Somewhere  in  the  Church  you  will 
find  crystalline  waters.  There  is  a  church  inside  the 
Church.  Move  in  that;  live  enswathed  in  that.  Let 
that  be  the  transfusing  bath  of  your  inmost  life ; 
and  very  soon  you  will  find  in  the  power  of  that 
interfusion  of  soul  with  soul  that  assuredly  God  is 
yet  in  his  holy  temple. 

Yes ;  but  there  are  hypocrites  in  the  Church.  I 
know  it.  Let  Tennyson  describe  one :  — 

"  With  all  his  conscience  and  one  eye  askew, 
So  false,  he  partly  took  himself  for  true; 
Whose  pious  talk,  when  most  his  heart  was  dry, 
Made  wet  the  crafty  crow's-foot  round  his  eye; 
Who  never  naming  God  except  for  gain, 
So  never  took  that  useful  name  in  vain; 
Made  him  his  cat's-paw,  and  the  Cross  his  tool, 
And  Christ  the  bait  to  trap  his  dupe  and  fool ; 
Nor  deeds  of  gift,  but  gifts  of  grace,  he  forged, 
And,  snake-like,  slimed  his  victim  ere  he  gorged; 
And  oft  at  Bible-meetings,  o'er  the  rest 
Arising,  did  his  holy,  oily  best." 

Tennyson's  Sea-Dreams. 

The  black  angels  look  through  pillars  of  blue  fire 
of  that  sort.  Do  you  want  the  Church  better  ?  Unite 
with  it,  and  turn  out  such  men;  or,  rather,  unite 
with  it,  and  keep  such  men  from  getting  in.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Perhaps  some  of  our  churches  are  too  ambitious 
to  be  large  in  numbers.  Let  us  be  reasonably  shy 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  263 

of  that  church  ambition  which  cares  more  for  quan- 
tity than  quality.  Our  evangelist  has  said  that  he 
once  in  Chicago  was  ambitious  to  have  a  big  church. 
He  obtained  one.  Then  he  became  ambitious  to  get 
a  small  one.  A  recognition  of  the  necessity  of  spirit- 
ual church-membership  is  the  crowning  glory  of  the 
churches  of  America  of  all  denominations ;  and  it  is 
almost  a  distinctively  American  idea. 

Think  of  the  host  in  the  air  behind  me,  as  I  invite 
you  to  become  members  of  God's  house  !  Here  is  a 
visible  audience  which  might  be  enlarged  to  fill  the 
city,  or  the  nation,  or  the  continent,  or  the  world ; 
but  even  then  the  audience  before  me  would  be  as 
a  ripple  compared  with  the  sea,  in  contrast  with  this 
audience  in  the  air  behind  me,  —  all  the  sainted  of 
our  New-England  shore,  all  who  have  gone  hence 
from  foreign  lands,  and  are  now  in  the  Unseen  Holy ! 
The  Church  is  one  on  earth  and  in  heaven.  Think 
of  the  martyrs  of  the  Reformation,  those  who,  on 
the  Continent  of  Europe,  prepared  the  way  for  this 
modern  rising  of  the  sun,  and  of  all  those  who  in 
the  eighteen  Christian  centuries  have  labored,  and 
into  whose  labors  we  have  entered.  The  goodly 
company  of  the  martyrs  and  apostles  and  prophets 
is  before  you.  With  all  that  company  I  urge  you 
to  join  hands,  when  I  ask  you  to  pass  your  brief 
career  in  this  world  in  organized,  aggressive  com- 
panionship with  those  who  have  a  zeal  for  good 
works. 


264  ORTHODOXY. 


THE  LECTURE. 

New-England  scepticism  of  the  last  fifty  years  is 
the  upheaved,  foaming,  temporary  crest  of  two  inter- 
fused waves,  slowly  rising  from  the  historic  deep, 
moving  toward  each  other,  meeting  with  loud  shock, 
and  throwing  themselves  aloft,  —  one  American,  and 
one  German.  Theodore  Parker  and  much  else  floated 
in  Boston  at  the  summit  of  this  glittering,  uncertain 
crest,  when  each  wave  was  at  its  height,  and  when 
in  New  England  each  increased  the  height  of  the 
other.  In  Germany  the  watery  swell  of  rationalism 
is  going  down.  (See  Dorner,  Schwartz,  Kahnis, 
Christlieb,  Hagenbach,  Tholuck,  and  other  writers 
on  the  decline  of  rationalism  in  the  German  univer- 
sities. On  that  topic  see  an  article  in  the  Biblio- 
theca  Sacra  for  October,  1875.)  In  New  England 
the  vexed  billow  which  upheaved  Theodore  Parker 
is  going  down  also.  Both  waves  have  already 
broken  into  foam,  passed  their  climax,  and  are  slowly 
sinking  now  into  the  thoughtful,  abiding  level  of  the 
sea. 

Under  what  compulsion  of  winds  and  tides  did 
these  waves  rise  ?  Answer  me  that  question,  or  do 
not  attempt  to  explain  to  me  Boston  and  New  Eng- 
land. Make  some  fairly  adequate  response  to  that 
inquiry,  or  do  not  try  to  tell  me  how  Theodore 
Parker's  errors,  and  those  of  the  school  of  thought 
he  represents,  arose.  In  order  to  understand  the 
sources  of  his  mistakes,  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  cast 
what  I  hope  will  not  be  a  wholly  useless  glance 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  265 

over  the  causes  of  New-England  scepticism  at  large. 
Long  enough  has  this  city  had  the  name,  long  enough 
has  Harvard  University  yonder  had  the  reputation, 
it  does  not  now  deserve,  of  leading  erratic  thought 
in  regard  to  the  highest  of  all  possible  themes.  A 
very  curious  past  is  behind  us. 

When  Timothy  Dwight,  soldier,  poet,  and  theo- 
logian, magnum  atque  venerabile  nomen,  began  his 
presidency  at  Yale  College  in  1795,  the  students 
there  were  accustomed  to  name  each  other  after  the 
French  atheists.  Jefferson,  suspected  of  French 
principles  in  both  religion  and  politics,  was  soon 
to  become  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  nation.  The 
enthusiasm  for  Lafayette  and  for  Gallican  liberty 
had  inclined  the  heart  of  our  whole  people  toward 
France.  The  atrociously  shallow  and  unclean,  but 
brilliant  and  audacious  Parisian  infidelity  of  the 
period  looked  attractive,  even  to  the  most  talented 
and  scholarly  undergraduates.  "That  was  the  day," 
Lyman  Beecher  writes  in  his  "  Autobiography  "  (vol. 
i.  p.  43),  "  when  boys  that  dressed,  flax  in  the  barn 
read  Tom  Paine,  and  believed  him.  The  college 
church  was  almost  extinct.  Most  of  the  students 
were  sceptical,  and  rowdies  were  plenty.  Wines  and 
liquors  were  kept  in  many  rooms.  Intemperance,  pro- 
fanity, gambling,  and  licentiousness  were  common." 
Lyman  Beecher- was  in  Yale  College  as  a  student  in 
his  third  year,  when  Timothy  Dwight  came  there  as 
president ;  and  now  these  two  men  lie  not  far  from 
each  other  in  the  unspeakably  precious  dust  of  the 
New  Haven  cemetery,  at  rest  until  the  heavens  are 


266  OETHODOXY. 

no  more.  At  the  first  communion  season  after  Pres- 
ident Dwight's  installation,  only  a  single  student 
from  the  whole  membership  of  the  college  remained 
to  participate  in  the  service  of  the  eucharist.  In  all 
the  history  of  the  American  Church  there  has  hardly 
been  an  hour  of  greater  disaster.  The  senior  class 
brought  before  the  president  a  list  of  questions  for 
'liscussion,  one  of  them  on  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures  (DwiGHT's  Theology,  Memoir,  vol.  i.  See 
also  SPABKS'S  Life  of  DwigM).  He  chose  that 
theme  for  a  written  debate,  asked  the  young  men  to 
be  as  thorough  as  possible  on  the  infidel  side,  treated 
them  courteously,  answered  them  fairly,  delivered 
for  six  months  from  the  college  pulpit  massive 
courses  of  thought  against  infidelity ;  and  from  that 
day  it  ran  into  hiding-holes  in  Yale  College. 

If  Harvard  University  had  had  a  President  Dwight, 
1  say  not  what  might  have  been  its  subsequent  history 
and  that  of  portions  of  Cambridge  and  Boston ;  but 
it  would  have  been  different.  Among  the  eloquent 
memorials  of  the  fathers,  Mr.  Emerson,  in  the  Old 
South  church,  lately  told  us  that  Providence  has 
granted  to  Boston  thus  far  the  guidance  of  the  intel- 
lectual destiny  of  this  continent.  Boston  is  a  sea- 
blown  city  of  amusingly  self-blown  trumpets.  It  is 
safe  to  affirm,  that,  in  the  geography  of  American 
culture,  Boston  is  as  yet,  in  the  opinion  of  many, 
and  especially  in  her  own,  the  highest  summit.  But 
Harvard  University  is  Boston's  summit.  Religious 
diseases,  originated  chiefly  by  contagion  from  France 
in  her  revolutionary  period,  and  by  many  years  of 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  267 

war  on  our  own  soil,  filled  the  veins  of  Harvard,  as 
well  as  those  of  Yale,  at  the  opening  of  our  national 
life.  At  the  close  of  the  last  century,  Harvard,  as 
well  as  Yale,  was  in  a  vicious  state,  induced  chiefly 
by  the  very  same  causes  which  had  produced  demor- 
alization at  Yale.  Under  the  elms  yonder,  as  well  as 
under  those  at  New  Haven,  sceptical  students  called 
each  other  in  honor  by  infidel  names, — Voltaire, 
Rousseau,  D'Alembert.  In  that  Parisian  period,  un- 
reportable  vices  were  as  common  at  Harvard  as  at  Yale. 
We  have  just  had  a  pleasant  book  written,  describing 
student  life  in  Harvard  as  it  unrolls  itself  at  present, 
and  as  many  of  you  and  as  I  remember  it;  but  a 
volume  describing  life  there  ninety  years  ago,  and  as 
frankly  written  as  this  new  description,  we  should 
not  care  to  have  generally  circulated.  In  several 
works  of  historic  fiction  the  average  undergraduate 
of  that  time  is  represented  as  a  low  character.  You 
know  what  pictures  the  world  received  from  Hogarth ; 
but  some  of  the  scenes  he  has  put  on  immortal  can- 
vas to  illustrate  "  The  Rake's  Progress "  might  be 
matched  out  of  the  fairly  representative  life  of 
Yale  and  Harvard  in  that  French  period.  The  aver- 
age undergraduate  of  the  last  years  of  the  last  century, 
at  both  Yale  and  Harvard,  was  far  less  of  a  gentle- 
man, and  immensely  less  of  a  Christian,  than  he  is  to- 
day. Why,  at  Harvard  at  this  moment  a  great  body 
of  the  students  are  members  of  churches,  and,  other 
things  being  equal,  are  not  thought  the  less  of  on  that 
account.  I  hold  in  my  hand  here  elaborate  statistics 
as  to  recent  classes  in  Harvard  University.  Take 


268  ORTHODOXY. 

one  of  the  very  last,  and  in  it  there  were,  of  men 
about  to  graduate,  of  Unitarians,  39 ;  Episcopalians, 
35 ;  Congregationalists,  23 ;  Baptists,  11 ;  Presbyte- 
rians, 6 ;  Liberals,  4 ;  Methodists,  2 ;  Eoman  Catho- 
lics, 2.  According  to  that  table,  there  is  really  more 
reason  for  calling  Harvard  an  orthodox  college  than 
a  heterodox.  The  college  is  not  denominational  in 
any  sense.  It  would  not  like  to  be  called  Unitarian, 
or  Congregational,  or  Episcopal.  Among  the  stu- 
dents there  are  well  organized  and  vigorous  religious 
societies,  and  the  conditions  of  admission  to  them  are 
more  severe  than  to  most  churches.  I  find  reason, 
therefore,  for  contrasting  the  present  with  the  past  of 
Harvard  favorably.  But  this  change  has  come  about 
within  the  last  fifty  years.  At  Yale,  in  my  class,  we 
had  more  than  two-thirds  on  entrance,  members  of 
Christian  churches.  -I  know  that  we  hear  of  scan- 
dalous things  in  these  large  companies  of  students 
at  Yale  and  at  Harvard.  You  cannot  bring  together 
a  thousand  young  men,  without  finding  a  few  among 
them  of  the  shallow  and  riotous  sort ;  but  they  do 
not  give  the  tone  to  the  whole  college.  Perhaps  they 
do  to  a  few  secret  societies, — breathing-holes  of  fri- 
volity, and  often  of  what  is  far  worse.  The  mass  of 
students  are  honorable  men,  and  come  from  honora- 
ble families,  although  at  the  present  day  it  can  be 
said  that  a  few  are  what  the  most  were  in  the  last 
twenty  years  of  the  last  century,  at  Yale  and  Har- 
vard. Certain  it  is  that  these  diseases  of  a  greatly 
tempted  time  existed  in  Cambridge  with  as  much  in- 
tensity as  they  did  at  New  Haven.  Certain  it  is  that 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  269 

at  Harvard  there  was  no  President  Dwight  to  drive 
them  out,  as  there  was  at  Yale.  The  atmosphere  of 
Harvard  as  well  as  of  Yale  at  the  opening  of  our 
national  life  was  heavily  infected  with  Parisian  infi- 
delity, but  no  adequate  corrective  was  applied  at 
Harvard;  and,  although  the  evil  results  are  now 
largely  outgrown,  they  have  been  very  noteworthy 
to  those  who  have  minutely  studied  how  the  sick 
forehead  of  a  certain  kind  of  culture  in  Boston,  laid 
in  the  palm  of  God  to  rest,  has  tossed  there  with 
doubt,  as  in  Channing's  and  Parker's  case,  whether 
the  hand  was  ever  pierced  for  human  sins ;  and  now 
lately  with  doubt,  as  with  some  of  the  Free-Religion- 
ists, whether  there  be  any  personal  hand  at  all  or 
not. 

Boston  is  asked  to  give  an  account  of  herself. 
She  had  excellent  fathers;  but  she  has  of  late  had 
the  name  of  being  the  apologist  for  much  looseness 
of  thought.  We  are  willing  to  give  an  account  of 
ourselves.  We  have  had  a  trial  such  as  no  other 
Commonwealth  on  this  continent  ever  had.  We  have 
had  a  State  Church.  How  did  this  arise  ?  Yale  and 
Harvard  were  founded  by  men  of  Christian  zeal ;  and 
how  did  it  come  about,  that,  in  so  short  a  time,  these 
institutions  lapsed  into  a  condition  that  gave  joy  to 
the  shallow  infidel  clubs  of  Paris  ?  All  Frenchmen 
were  not  like  Lafayette.  These  results  arose  from 
adequate  causes,  which  ought  not  to  be  forgotten. 
If  you  wish  to  understand  Boston  doctrinal  unrest, 
you  must  go  back  first  to  the  period  when  Paris 
ruled  us.  You  must  recall  the  time  when  Lafay- 


270  ORTHODOXY. 

ette  and  Jefferson  had  our  heart,  and  we  were  not 
a  little  in  awe  or  admiration  of  that  very  brittle 
sceptre,  —  Parisian  thought  about  religion,  a  style  of 
intellectual  allegiance  that  no  man  is  proud  of  now. 
The  infidelity  which  flourished  in  1795  in  Yale  and 
Harvard  among  young  men,  no  scholar  to-day  cares 
to  answer  for :  it  is  an  unclean  and  degraded  thing. 
We  have  grown  far  beyond  all  that.  How  did  we 
sink  so  low  as  to  follow  that  pillar  of  ashes  and  blood 
which  rose  on  the  Seine,  and  led  the  nations  not 
altogether  celestially  for  a  while  —  a  little  electricity 
in  it,  no  doubt;  some  white-fire  mingled  with  the 
blue  in  the  whirlwind ;  but  Saharas  of  dust  also,  and 
hosts  of  hissing,  flying  scraps  of  white-hot  volcanic 
stone  ? 

Our  fathers  did  not  believe  that  a  man  might  be  a 
minister,  although  unconverted;  but  when  George 
Whitefield  was  in  this  city,  it  was  necessary  for  him 
to  insist  that  a  man  should  not  be  a  minister  unless 
converted.  (See  WHITEFIELD'S  New  England  Jour- 
nal, passim.^)  On  Boston  Common,  with  twenty 
thousand  people  in  his  audience,  George  Whitefield 
defended  the  proposition  that  a  man  does  not  become 
a  saint  in  his  sleep  ;•  that  conversion  is  an  ascer tain- 
able  change,  or  will  show  itself  by  its  effects ;  and  that 
if  the  results  which  will  naturally  follow  from  such  a 
state  of  life  are  not  visible,  their  absence  is  proof 
that  a  man  should  not  be  a  member  of  God's  house. 
Why  did  he  need  to  oppose  in  New  England,  ideas 
which  did  not  cross  the  Atlantic  in  the  Mayflower  ? 
How  did  New  England  wander  so  far  away  from 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  271 

Plymouth  Rock,  and  find  herself  in  this  low  marsh, 
where  many  of  the  State  churches  of  Europe  are 
struggling  to-day?  Why,  she  fell  into  that  marsh 
by  having  herself  a  State  Church.  The  marshes  of 
the  State  churches  of  Europe,  —  you  understand 
them  very  well.  We  had  the  oozy  acres  of  a  State 
Church  to  walk  over  in  Massachusetts  for  more  than 
fifty  years;  and  the  smutch  is  not  off  our  feet  yet 
that  we  received  in  those  bogs. 

In  1631  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
passed  an  order  that  "  for  time  to  come  none  shall  be 
admitted  to  the  freedom  of  the  body  politic  but 
church-members."  What  is  the  effect  of  making  a 
rule  that  nobody  can  vote  unless  he  is  a  church- 
member  ?  Why,  everybody  will  want  to  be  a  church- 
member,  and  there  will  be  large  churches,  and  you 
will  admit  men  into  the  church  whom  it  will  be  very 
hard  to  get  out.  Now,  it  was  a  public  law  of  this 
Commonwealth,  passed  early,  with  all  due  form,  that 
only  church-members  could  vote.  That  was  eleven 
years  after  the  landing  on  Plymouth  Rock.  Remem- 
ber, however,  that  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  rather  than  the  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth  Bay,  are 
responsible  for  the  secularization  of  the  holiest  por- 
tion of  New-England  life.  Where  did  that  law  come 
from  ?  It  was  a  thrifty  scion  from  the  far-spreading 
European  bough.  Our  fathers  had  seen  children 
baptized  and  confirmed  in  State  churches ;  and  it  was 
thought,  that,  in  some  sense,  all  baptized  persons 
were  members  of  the  church.  That  was  and  is  the 
predominating  opinion  of  Europe.  This  idea  the 


272  ORTHODOXY. 

Puritans  of  England  —  who  were  not  separatists,  as 
the  Pilgrims  were  —  did  not  leave  behind  them  when 
they  crossed  the  sea.  So  we  had  here  in  my  denomi- 
nation—  the  most  aristocratic  on  this  continent,  if 
you  please,  and  the  most  split,  and,  in  some  particu- 
lars, the  most  harmful  —  a  State  Church. 

The  Puritans  who  landed  in  Boston  brought  to 
America  the  theory  that  every  child  should  be  made, 
as  far  as  possible,  a  member  of  the  church;  and, 
therefore,  it  was  a  part  of  their  anxiety  in  founding 
a  new  civilization  to  have  all  children  baptized. 
Those  of  our  fathers  who  were  not  separatists  had 
State  Church  ideas  concerning  the  baptism  of  chil- 
dren. The  secularization  of  Orthodoxy  in  New  Eng- 
land arose  primarily  from  the  desire  of  the  Puritans 
to  secure  the  religious  culture  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion. The  law  of  1631  was  passed  with  the  best  of 
intentions,  but  it  had  the  most  mischievous  effects. 

What  happened  next?  In  1635  we  turned  Roger 
Williams  away  from  the  Massachusetts  Colony,  chiefly 
for  political  reasons,  as  the  highest  authority  on  this 
vexed  theme,  the  learned  editor  of  "  The  Boston  Con- 
gregationalist,"  says  and  proves,  in  spite  of  the  dis- 
sent of  Rhode  Island  and  of  Brown  University. 
(See  DEXTER,  Rev.  Dr.  H.  M.,  As  to  Roger  Williams, 
p.  79.)  The  reasons  why  Roger  Williams  was  sent 
away  were  no  doubt  fundamentally  political :  never- 
theless, one  source  of  irritation  with  him  was  that  he 
objected  to  the  baptizing  of  infants.  Why  did  he  do 
that  ?  Among  many  other  reasons,  because  he  saw 
that  to  regard  all  baptized  persons  as,  in  an  important 


SCEPTICISM  IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  273 

sense,  members  of  the  church,  led  to  the  seculariza- 
tion of  church-membership.  I  remember  where  I  am 
speaking ;  I  know  what  prejudices  I  am  crossing  : 
but  I  know  that  in  this  assembly,  assuredly,  nobody 
will  have  objection  to  my  advocacy,  even  at  a  little 
expense  of  consistency  with  my  own  supposed  prin- 
ciples, of  the  necessity  of  a  spiritual  church-member- 
ship. [Applause.]  If  I  say  that  a  certain  denomi- 
nation, represented  by  that  man  who  was  driven  from 
Massachusetts  to  Rhode  Island,  has,  in  spite  of  all 
we  hear  of  criticism  about  one  of  its  beliefs,  been  of 
foremost  service  in  bringing  into  the  world,  among 
all  Protestant  denominations,  an  adequate  idea  of 
the  importance  of  a  spiritual  church-membership,  I 
know  that  no  generous  heart  or  searching  intellect 
will  object  to  that  statement.  [Applause.] 

In  1653  no  less  a  man  than  Henry  Dunster,  presi- 
dent of  Harvard  University,  announced  himself  as 
an  opponent  to  the  doctrine  that  infants  should  be 
baptized.  He  refused  to  allow  an  infant  of  his  own 
family  to  be  baptized,  and  delivered  several  sermons 
against  the  baptism  of  infants.  Baptist  authorities 
assert  that  Henry  Dunster  became  a  Baptist.  (See 
an  address  delivered  in  Philadelphia,  before  the 
American  Baptist  Historical  Society  at  its  eleventh 
anniversary,  by  Rev.  Daniel  C.  Eddy.  Philadelphia: 
Historical  Society  Press,  1864.)  But  he  continued 
to  be  president  of  Harvard  University.  His  pastor, 
the  Rev.  Jonathan  Mitchell,  in  1657,  on  account  of 
collisions  of  debate  of  the  kindest  sort  between 
himself  and  this  revered  man,  who  had  been  his 


271  ORTHODOXY. 

teacher,  caused  a  synod  to  be  called,  in  which  action 
was  taken  of  which  we  feel  the  mischief  yet.  Ques- 
tions raised  as  to  the  baptism  of  children  had  "  come 
to  some  figure  first  in  the  colony  of  Connecticut." 
(MATHEB'S  Magnolia,  vol.  ii.  p.  238.  Hartford  ed.). 
A  comparison  of  all  the  authorities,  however,  shows 
that  both  Mitchell  of  Cambridge  and  Stone  of  Hart- 
ford were  leading  forces  among  the  influences  which 
brought  together  the  Massachusetts  council  of  1657. 
(See  McKENZEE,  Rev.  Dr.  A.,  History  of  the  Shepard 
Church,  Cambridge.)  This  Jonathan  Mitchell  would 
have  been  quite  a  figure  in  that  sky  of  culture  which 
some  think  too  soft,  too  transcendental,  for  any  thing 
in  the  stern  days  of  our  fathers  to  have  risen  into. 
The  recent  structure  of  the  Shepard  Church  in  Cam- 
bridge stands  yonder  under  the  Washington  Elm,  — 
it  is  my  fortune  to  be  a  member  of  it,  —  Mr.  Mc- 
Kenzie's ;  and  of  that  church,  successor  to  Shepard, 
this  Jonathan  Mitchell  was  pastor.  Cotton  Mather 
says  of  him,  — 

"  His  Sermons.  .  .  .  were  admirably  Well-Studied.  .  .  .  He 
ordinarily  medled  with  no  Point,  but  what  he  managed  with 
such  an  extraordinary  Invention,  Curious  Disposition,  and  Copi- 
ous Application,  as  if  he  would  leave  no  material  Thing  to  be 
said  of  it,  by  any  that  should  come  after  him.  And  when  he 
came  to  Utter  what  he  had  Prepared,  his  Utterance  had  such  a 
becoming  Tuneablcness,  ondVivacity,  to  set  it  off,  as  was  indeed 
Inimitable.  .  . .  Tho'  he  were  all  along  in  his  Preaching,  as  a 
very  lovely  Song  of  one  tJiat.  hath  a  pleasant  Voice,  yet  as  he 
drew  near  to  the  Close  of  his  Exercises,  his  Comely  Fervency 
would  rise  to  a  marvellous  Measure  of  Energy;  He  would  speak 
with  such  a  Transcendent  Majesty  and  Liveliness,  that  the  Peo- 


SCEPTIOIS.M  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  275 

pie  (more  Thunderstruck  than  they  that  heard  Cicero's  Oration 
for  Liffarius)  would  often  Shake  under  his  Dispensations,  as  if 
they  had  Heard  the  Sound  of  the  Trumpets  from  the  Burning 
Mountain,  and  yet  they  would  Mourn  to  think,  that  they  were 
going  presently  to  be  dismissed  from  such  an  Heaven  upon 
Earth."  (See  SIBLEY,  JOHN  LANGDON,  librarian  of  Harvard 
University,  Lives  of  Harvard  Graduates,  pp.  148-150.)  Richard 
Baxter  said  that  "  if  there  could  be  convened  a  Council  of  the 
whole  Christian  World,  that  man  would  be  worthy  to  be  the 
moderator  of  it." 

Now  that  man  came  very  near  opposing  himself  to 
infant  baptism.  On  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  Decem- 
ber, 1653,  with  arguments  elaborately  prepared,  he 
went  to  the  study  of  Henry  Dunster  to  convince  the 
president  of  Harvard  University  that  opposition  to 
infant  baptism  was  wrong;  but  Jonathan  Mitchell 
came  away  almost  converted  to  Henry  Dunster's 
views.  He  found,  that,  in  his  secret  thoughts,  it  was 
injected  into  his  mind  now  and  then,  that  infant  bap- 
tism had  certain  mischievous  tendencies  in  the  State.' 
But  these  suggestions  came  oftenest  on  Saturday, 
when  he  was  very  busy  writing  his  address  for  the 
next  day ;  and  he  thought,  therefore,  that  they  were 
from  the  evil  spirits.  It  could  not  be  good  angels 
that  sent  these  suggestions ;  for  no  good  spirit  would 
interrupt  the  writing  of  a  sermon.  Besides,  although 
"  these  thoughts  were  darted  in  with  some  impression, 
and  left  a  strange  confusion  and  sickliness  on  his 
spirits,"  they  were  "  injected,  hurrying  suggestions, 
rather  than  deliberate  thoughts."  On  these  grounds 
chiefly,  Jonathan  Mitchell,  in  the  days  of  Salem 
witchcraft,  concluded  that  all  arguments  against  in- 


276  ORTHODOXY* 

fant  baptism  must  be  put  aside.  The  question  was 
settled  in  his  own  mind ;  but  the  importance  of  these 
interruptions  turned  out  to  be  really  considerable  to 
New  Eugland  to  this  hour.  He  insisted  on  debating 
the  matter  in  public  over  and  over ;  and  his  influence, 
says  Cotton  Mather,  was  something  of  which  the 
centre  was  at  Cambridge,  and  the  circumference  out- 
side New  England. 

Largely  by  the  effort  of  this  eloquent  man, 
Mitchell,  there  was  brought  together  at  Boston,  in 
1657,  by  invitation  of  the  General  Court,  an  assem- 
bly of  the  principal  ministers  of  Massachusetts  ;  and 
by  that  body  of  grave  men  it  was  ordained  that  the 
half-way  covenant  be  adopted.  By  that  covenant 
those  parents  who  were  baptized  in  infancy  were, 
if  living  respectable  lives,  allowed  to  have  their 
children  baptized.  Church-members  became  eligible 
to  civil  offices.  (See  MATHER'S  Magnolia,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  238-270.  Hartford  ed.) 

Notice  how  the  political  strain  was  on  Massachu- 
setts all  the  way  through.  That  decision  gave  great 
umbrage  to  the  churches.  President  Chauncy  of 
Harvard  opposed  it ;  and  in  1662  another  synod  was 
called,  and  it  was  affirmed  again  that  the  half-way 
covenant  should  be  the  rule  of  the  land.  That 
changed  one  or  two  thousand  things. 

It  is  an  inadequate  account  of  the  origin  of  secu- 
larization of  New-England  orthodoxy,  to  attribute 
the  half-way  covenant  exclusively  to  religious  causes. 
If  we  look  beneath  the  surface  of  this  deterioration 
in  its  middle  stages,  we  shall  find  political  causes  at 


SCEPTICISM  IK  NEW  ENGLAND.  277 

work.  Palfrey  well  says  (History  of  New  England, 
vol.  ii.  p.  492)  that  "the  degree  of  irritation  that 
prevailed"  concerning  the  half-way  covenant  "is 
scarcely  to  be  explained  by  a  consideration  of  only 
the  ostensible  grounds  of  dispute.  'From  the  fire 
of  the  altar,'  says  Mather  (Magnati*,  Book  iii.  117) 
*  there  issued  thunderings  and  lightnings  and  earth- 
quakes.' The  truth  is,  that  political  regards  brought 
their  explosive  fuel  to  the  flame." 

The  fashion  had  been  set  that  only  church-mem- 
bers could  be  eligible  to  public  office.  I  know  that 
in  1688,  on  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  the 
law  that  required  church-membership  as  a  condition 
to  citizenship  was  repealed ;  but  you  cannot  raise  a 
great  wave  like  this,  and  stop  it  by  changing  rulers 
in  England.  We  had  had  it  from  1631  to  1688.  It 
was  the  rule  that  only  church-members  should  be 
eligible  to  office,  and  partly,  as  a  result  of  that,  we 
had  had  a  half-way  covenant.  Long  after  1688,  that 
rule  of  fashion  and  the  half-way  covenant  kept  on 
in  spite  of  the  changes  of  laws  under  William  and 
Mary. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  in  1704  we  find 
men  like  Stoddard  of  Northampton  maintaining  that 
unregenerate  persons  might  come  to  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per. Whitefield  wrote  in  1740,  "Mr.  Stoddard  is 
much  to  be  blamed  for  endeavoring  to  prove  that  un- 
converted men  might  be  admitted  into  the  ministry." 

To  close  this  astounding  story  of  the  secularization 
of  New-England  Congregationalism,  we  find  at  last 
Jonathan  Edwards  and  Whitefield  making  objection 


278  ORTHODOXY. 

seriously  to  the  prolonged  abuses  of  the  church-mem- 
bership. When  Jonathan  Edwards  at  Northampton, 
finding  out  that  some  moral  evils  greatly  needing  crit- 
icism were  appearing  in  the  younger  lives  he  was  set 
to  guide,  taught  that  unconverted  persons  should  not 
be  members  of  God's  house,  opposed  his  predecessor's 
evil  plea  that  church  ordinances  are  or  may  be  sav- 
ing, and  insisted  that  a  man  should  experience  the 
new  birth  before  coming  to  the  communion  service, 
his  hearers  rose,  and  drove  him  into  the  wilderness  for 
ascetic  heresy.  I  know  where  in  Massachusetts  I  can 
put  my  hand  on  little  irregular  scraps  of  brown  paper, 
stitched  together  as  note-books,  and  closely  covered 
all  over  with  Jonathan  Edwards's  handwriting.  Why 
did  he  use  such  coarse  material  in  his  studies  ?  Why 
was  he  within  sight  of  starvation  ?  Because  he  had 
opposed  the  secularisation  of  the  Church.  Why  did 
that  man  need  to  accept  from  Scotland  funds  with 
which  to  maintain  his  family  ?  Because  he  insisted 
upon  a  spiritual  church-membership.  Why  did  his 
wife  and  daughters  make  fans,  and  sell  them  to 
buy  bread?  Because  he  opposed  the  spirit  of  the 
half-way  covenant.  Because  he  defended  with  vigor, 
as  Whitefield  did,  the  idea  that  a  man  should  not 
be  a  minister  unless  converted,  nor  a  church-mem- 
ber unless  converted,  and  so  set  himself  against  the 
whole  trend  of  this  huge,  turbid,  hungry,  haughty 
wave  of  secularization  that  had  been  rising  ever  since 
1631.  Of  course  he  was  abandoned  by  the  fashion- 
able. Of  course  his  life  was  in  some  sense  a  martyr- 
dom. His  note-books  were  made  from  the  refuse  of 


SCEPTICISM   IN  NEW   ENGLAND.  279 

brown  paper  left  from  the  fans.  There  is  nothing 
Massachusetts  so  little  likes  to  be  fanned  with  as 
those  fans  Jonathan  Edwards's  wife  and  daughters 
made,  and  sold  for  bread.  Yes,  you  starved  him  ;  but 
Scotland  fed  him,  thank  God !  [Applause.]  When 
Edwards  was  dismissed,  it  was  proposed  that  there  be 
a  council  of  ten  pastors ;  and  he  of  course  claimed  the 
right  of  choosing  five  ;  but  he  was  obliged  to  go  be- 
yond the  broad  bounds  of  old  Hampshire  County  in 
order  to  find  five  who  agreed  with  him.  He  went  to 
Mount  Holyoke,  a  marked  spot  then,  apparently,  as  it 
is  now,  in  the  spiritual  history  of  New  England,  and 
obtained  Woodbridge  of  South  Hadley  as  one  of  the 
council,  because  Woodbridge  agreed  with  him  in  op- 
position to  this  secularization  of  the  church. 

Political  pressure  and  social  arrogance  led  to  the 
half-way  covenant.  That  led  to  an  unconverted 
church-membership.  That  allowed  the  existence  of 
an  unconverted  ministry.  That  ministry  filled  the 
land  with  the  hue  and  cry  against  Whitefield  and 
Edwards. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  copy  of  a  record  made  as  late 
as  1728  on  the  official  books  of  a  church  in  Westfield ; 
and  it  is  a  specimen  of  the  records  you  may  find  all 
over  Eastern  Massachusetts.  I  go  up  and  down  from 
the  Merrimack  to  the  Connecticut  as  a  flying  scout, 
and  every  now  and  then  I  chance  to  meet  a  talkative 
document  like  this :  — 

"  At  a  church-meeting  holden  in  Westfield  Feb.  25,  1728, 
Voted,  that  those  who  enter  full  communion  may  have  liberty 
to  give  an  account  of  a  work  of  saving  conversion,  or  not.  It 
sJiall  be  regarded  by  the  church  as  a  matter  of  indifference*' 


280  •  ORTHODOXY. 

Gentlemen,  out  of  the  fashion  of  the  English  State 
Church,  the  care  of  our  fathers  for  their  children, 
and  the  political  pressure  which  preceded  the  acces- 
sion of  William  and  Mary,  came  the  half-way  cov- 
enant. Out  of  the  half-way  covenant  came  the 
secularization  of  the  church-membership  of  the 
Congregational  body  in  New  England.  Out  of  our 
connection  with  the  State  came  marshes  of  stag- 
nant church-life  here,  similar  to  the  marshes  of  much 
of  State  Church  life  in  Europe  to-day.  There  is 
hardly  a  breeze  that  sweeps  over  Boston  that  does 
not  come  from  those  marshes,  not  yet  dry,  and  that 
never  had  any  salt  in  them  to  keep  them  sweet.  You 
know  that  I  am  speaking  here  more  frankly  than  I 
could  have  spoken  fifty  years  ago ;  for  it  has  not  been 
the  fashion,  in  my  portion  of  New  England,  denomi- 
nationally to  admit  the  evil  of  this  half-way  covenant 
as  fully  as  I  have  now  done,  until  within  twenty-five 
or  thirty  years  ;  but  these  are  the  facts. 

A  law  by  which  only  church-members  could  vote 
was  in  operation  in  Massachusetts  from  1631  to  1688, 
in  form,  and  much  longer  in  spirit. 

The  political  and  social  pressure  arising  from  that 
law  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  half-way  covenant,  by 
which  persons  not  professing  to  have  entered  on  a 
new  life  at  all  were  allowed  to  enter  the  Church. 

Out  of  that  pressure  arose  Stoddard's  evil  plea,  that 
unconverted  persons  should  be  brought  to  the  com- 
munion service. 

Out  of  all  these  causes  came  an  unconverted  church- 
membership. 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  281 

Out  of  that  came  gradually  an  unconverted  ministry. 

Out  of  that  came  a  broad  departure  from  many 
points  of  the  lofty  and  scientifically  severe  ideals  of 
Plymouth  Rock. 

Out  of  that  departure  arose,  in  experience,  a  wide 
and  deep  secularization  of  the  more  fashionable  of 
the  churches  of  Eastern  Massachusetts. 

Out  of  this  secularization  of  the  churches  of 
Eastern  Massachusetts  came  their  chief  weakness  in 
their  resistance  to  the  irreligious  influences  arising 
from  the  French  war  and  the  Revolution,  and  to  the 
accession  of  the  French  infidelity  at  the  moment  when 
Lafayette  and  French  liberty  had  bent  "the  national 
soul  toward  France. 

What  does  Joseph  Tracy  say  in  his  "History  of 
the  Great  Awakening  "  ?  I  open  that  most  cautious 
book  on  the  whole  topic ;  and  I  read,  "  Every  Con- 
gregational Church  in  New  England,  probably,  has 
either  adopted  Edwards's  and  Whitefield's  doctrine 
concerning  church-membership,  or  become  Unita- 
rian." (See  pp.  411  -  413,  418.) 

Americans  have  all  sorts  of  sense,  except  historic 
sense.  We  have  had  a  State  Church ;  we  have  had  a 
secularized  church-membership  in  one  of  our  denom- 
inations, the  ruling  one ;  and  little  by  little  that  sec- 
ularization so  lowered  OUT  standards,  that  it  is  not 
amazing  at  all,  and  it  is  a  thing  we  ought  to  have 
expected,  that  out  of  the  combination  of  causes  in- 
cluded in  the  older  Arminianism,  the  half-way  cov- 
enant, the  disturbances  of  the  French  war  and  the 
Revolution,  French  infidelity,  the  popular  misconcep- 


282  ORTHODOXY. 

tions  of  scholarly  Orthodox  doctrine,  and  some  crude 
and  rash  statements  in  Orthodoxy  itself,  came  Uni- 
tarianism. 

Out  of  Unitaristnism,  and  the  brilliancy  of  its  early 
literary  and  secular  successes,  came  Harvard  Univer- 
sity in  its  largely  unevangelical  attitude,  —  an  attitude 
now  greatly  changed. 

Out  of  Harvard  University,  in  its  unevangelical 
attitude,  came  the  occasionally  sceptical  or  doctrinally 
indifferent  literary  circles  of  Eastern  Massachusetts. 

Out  of  the  sceptical  literary  circles  of  Eastern 
Massachusetts  came  one  part  of  the  influences  that 
set  a  portion,  though  only  a  portion,  of  the  Boston 
fashions  of  thought. 

Here  we  are  face  to  face  with  an  age  when  anti- 
slavery  was  taken  up  by  your  eloquent  Parker,  and 
the  Church  lagged  behind.  This  was  its  own  fault. 
Time  has  criticised  that  slowness  on  the  part  of  Or- 
thodoxy to  follow  Providence,  that  tardiness  which 
left  between  the  Church  and  God  a  chasm  which 
is  filled  ^up,  in  great  part,  with  the  corpses  of  my 
own  generation.  You  will  allow  me,  as  a  member  of 
a  decimated  generation,  to  be  frank  concerning  the 
slowness  of  Orthodoxy  to  follow  God,  until  he  whom 
we  dare  not  name  plainly  became  abolitionist. 
Parker  followed  him,  and  obtained  a  following.  This 
is  the  outcome  of  a  single  historical  glance  ;  but  if 
I  could  have  gone  into  detail,  if  I  could  have  shown 
you  how  link  has  followed  link,  you  would  be  amazed 
to  find  Boston  to-day  not  wreathed  round  and  round 
with  misconceptions  of  the  highest  truth;  and  that 


SCEPTICISM  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  283 

religion  here,  which  has  allowed  itself  to  be  corrupted 
so  much  in  the  past,  is  to-day  so  little  corrupted. 
Omitting  fractions,  the  statistics  show,  that,  in  1816, 
there  was  one  unevangelical  church  in  Boston  to  every 
three  thousand  of  the  population.  Now  there  is  only 
one  to  every  six  thousand.  In  1816  there  was  only 
one  evangelical  church  in  Boston  to  every  four  thou- 
sand inhabitants.  Now  there  is  one  to  every  two 
thousand.  In  the  experience  of  half  a  century,  a 
period  long  enough  to  constitute  a  very  fair  test  of 
the  tendencies  of  thought,  and  exhibiting  the  results 
of  no  mere  temporary  swirl  of  opinion,  evangelical 
churches  in  Boston  have  risen  from  the  proportion 
of  one  to  four  thousand  to  that  of  one  to  two  thou- 
sand, and  the  unevangelical  of  all  kinds  have  fallen 
off  from  the  proportion  of  one  to  three  thousand  to 
that  of  one  to  six  thousand.  Very  significant  on  the 
dial  of  Boston,  with  this  past  behind  us,  is  the  de- 
clining shadow  of  that  philosophy,  which,  in  a  dim 
morning  of  religious  experience,  sees  Olympus  and 
Parnassus,  and  mistakes  them  for  Sinai  and  Calvary. 
Orthodoxy  has  not  always  followed  God ;  but  only 
so  far  as  it  follows  him  will  it  ultimately  have  any 
following.  Deum  sequi,  to  follow  God,  was  Seneca's 
supreme  rule  for  political  action.  Our  painful  past 
summarizes  its  eager  councils  by  writing  these  Roman 
words  over  all  doors  of  church  and  school,  social  life, 
literature,  and  reform. 


X. 


THEODORE  PARKER  AS  AN  ANTISLAVERY 
REFORMER. 

SEVENTY-NINTH     LECTURE     IN     THE     BOSTON     MONDAY     LEC- 
TURESHIP,   DELIVERED    IN    TREMONT    TEMPLE    MAY    21. 


"  WINDES  Kauschen,  Gottes  Fliigel, 
Tief  in  kiihler  Waldesnacht, 
Wie  der  Held  in  Rosses  Biigel, 
Schwingt  sich  des  Gedankens  Macht. 
Wie  die  alten  Tannen  sausen, 
Hort  man  Geistes  Wogen  brausen." 

SCHLEGEL. 

"  WHEN  a  deed  is  done  for  freedom,  through  the  broad  earth's  aching 

breast 

Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  east  to  west; 
And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels  the  soul  within  him  climb 
To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sublime 
Of  a  century  bursts,  full-blossomed,  on  the  thorny  stem  of  Time." 

LOWELL. 


X. 


THEODORE    PARKER'S    MERIT    AS    AN 
ANTISLAVERY   REFORMER. 

PEELUDE    ON    CTJKKENT    EVENTS. 

WILL  it  not  be  well  for  the  fertile  lands  on  the 
Danube  to  escape  from  under  the  light  of  the  Cres- 
cent ?  In  four  hundred  years,  beneath  that  peculiar 
radiance,  have  they  grown  fatter,  or  leaner  ?  Where 
are  the  great  fruits  of  Turkish  finance,  politics,  liter- 
ature, law,  philosophy,  religion,  and  social  life?  It 
was  well  for  Servia,  it  was  advantageous  for  Egypt, 
it  was  fortunate  for  Greece,  to  break  or  loosen  the 
Turkish  yoke.  Our  stern  world,  up  to  this  miracu- 
lous hour,  is  governed  by  the  law  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  There  are  renowned  Mussulman  pro- 
verbs, which  assert  that  the  Turkish  hoof  always 
leaves  behind  it  barrenness.  These  ancient  sayings 
are  not  contradicted  by  the  Turkish  bankruptcy  of 
to-day.  Which  ought  we  to  fear  the  more  for  the 
Danube,  —  the  tread  of  the  blighting  Turkish  hoof, 
or  that  of  the  relentless  icy  paw  of  the  Russian  bear  ? 
Each  of  these  feet  deserves  a  tether.  On  which  side 
ought  American  sympathies  to  lie  in  the  Eastern  war  ? 

287 


288  OETHODOXY. 

British  sympathies  are  divided ;  but  American  sym- 
pathies ought  to  be  cooler  at  this  distance  than  the 
British  can  be.  Nevertheless,  since  American  mis- 
sionaries, whom  Lord  Shaftsbury  calls  the  most  re- 
markable men  in  the  East,  have  planted  the  Cross  on 
the  Bosphorus,  we  have  an  interest,  as  Christian 
citizens  of  the  world,  in  the  question  whether  Russia, 
or  Turkey,  or  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  shall  rule 
these  fair  borders  of  the  Black  Sea. 

What  has  polygamy  done  for  Turkish  society  ?  I 
looked  once  five  days  through  Constantinople,  to 
find  among  polyamists,  a  single  fresh  face  over 
forty  years  of  age,  and  looked  in  vain.  The  unre- 
portable  vices  of  the  East  not  infrequently  have  to 
be  guarded  against  in  Roberts  College.  The  son  of 
an  English  physician  who  followed  Lord  Byron  to 
Greece,  and  who  became  one  of  the  foremost  medical 
advisers  of  the  court  at  Constantinople,  told  me,  that 
his  father  would  never  let  him  go  to  the  public  baths 
alone.  You  would  drive  me  out  at  that  door,  if  I 
were  to  tell  you  what  more  he  said.  Which  is  the 
worse,  —  Russian  absolutism,  or  Mohammedan  polyg- 
amy and  its  attendant  vices?  What  Carlyle  calls 
the  unspeakable  Turk  is  not  seen  in  Constantinople 
as  well  as  he  can  be  in  the  interior  of  Turkey  or 
Syria. 

I  remember  how  like  a  Corliss  Engine  Russian  ab- 
solutism is,  and  what  Russia  did  in  1846  in  driving 
all  missionaries  from  her  borders.  I  know,  also,  that 
1846  is  not  1876;  and  that,  even  if  Russia  should 
have  right  of  way  through  the  Bosphorus,  it  is 


PAEKEE   AS   AN  ANTISLAVEEY  EEFOEMEE.    289 

not  altogether  certain  that  our  missions  are  to  be 
put  down  there.  One  of  the  leading  statesmen 
who  helped  settle  the  treaty  of  peace  after  the  Cri- 
mean war  told  one  of  the  most  honored  merchants  of 
this  city,  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
that,  in  the  conference  preceding  the  making  of  that 
treaty,  Russia  explicitly  and  uniformly,  and  with  great 
detail,  promised  to  give  all  the  guaranties  that  the 
Christian  powers  of  the  West  should  desire,  if  only 
she  could  have  the  right  of  way  through  the  Bospho- 
rus.  We  have  exaggerated,  I  fear,  the  danger  to 
missionaries,  in  case  Russia  should  drive  the  Turks 
out  of  Europe.  Right  of  way  through  the  Bospho- 
rus  is  not  possession  of  Constantinople.  Entire  con- 
trol of  that  city,  Russia  will  not  obtain  as  easily  as 
she  burned  Moscow. 

It  is  affirmed  that  Turkey  is  now  making  reforms 
which  she  cannot  carry  through,  without  violating 
the  Koran.  The  subtlest  thing  said  in  favor  of  sym- 
pathy with  Turkey  is,  "  Let  Islam  be  allowed  to  com- 
mit suicide.  Let  Turkey  stand,  that  Islam  may  fall." 
Her  reforms  in  the  past  have  been  chiefly  on  paper. 
Her  promises  of  reform  are  worth  nothing  among 
bankers  or  statesmen.  But  what  if  she  be  driven 
back  to  her  deserts  ?  What  if  she  lose  Constantino- 
ple, as  she  has  practically  lost  Cairo  ?  Will  this  not 
be  a  more  effective  lessening  of  the  powers  and  pres- 
tige of  Mohammedanism  in  the  world  than  could 
come  from  her  reforms,  which  may  never  come? 
But,  even  if  Turkey  could  glorify  herself  on  the  Dan- 
ube politically  and  industrially,  would  she  not  aid 


290  ORTHODOXY. 

Mohammedanism  far  more  by  her  commercial  impor- 
tance and  political  weight  than  she  will  injure  it  by 
violating  a  few  tenets  of  her  creed  in  her  political 
changes  ? 

It  is  my  purpose,  however,  to  insist  simply  on  the 
fact  of  experience,  that  it  has  been  well  for  some  por- 
tion of  the  glowing  East  to  escape  from  under  the 
Turkish  yoke ;  and  that,  therefore,  if  we  are  to  be 
guided  by  the  light  of  experience,  we  must  hope  that 
Providence  means  to  limit  more  and  more  the  power 
of  Mohammedanism,  and,  indeed,  so  to  limit  it,  that 
by  and  by  it  shall  itself  see  its  own  natural  tendencies 
to  decay,  and  in  its  deserts  and  its  wildernesses  be 
healed  of  its  sickness  by  a  rebound  from  its  own 
leprosies.  God  grant  that  this  may  be  the  result  of 
driving  Islam  back  to  her  fastnesses ! 

What  has  happened  in  Greece  since  she  was  liber- 
ated from  Turkey  ? 

Forty  years  ago,  not  a  book  could  be  bought  at 
Athens.  To-day  one  in  eighteen  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion of  Greece  is  in  school.  Fifty  years  of  independ- 
ence, and  the  Hellenic  spirit  has  doubled  the  popu- 
lation of  Greece,  increased  her  revenues  five  hundred 
per  cent,  extended  telegraphic  communication  over 
the  kingdom,  enlarged  the  fleet  from  four  hundred 
and  forty  to  five  thousand  vessels,  opened  eight  ports, 
founded  eleven  new  cities,  restored  forty  ruined 
towns,  changed  Athens  from  a  hamlet  of  hovels  to  a 
city  of  sixty  thousand  inhabitants,  and  planted  there 
a  royal  palace,  a  legislative  chamber,  six  type-foun- 
deries,  forty  printing-establishments,  twenty  news- 


PARKER  AS  AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    291 

papers,  an  astronomical  observatory,  and  a  university 
with  fifty  professors  and  twelve  hundred  students. 
[Applause.]  King  Otho's  German  court,  when  he 
came  from  Nauplia  to  Athens,  in  1835,  lived  at  first 
in  a  shed  that  kept  out  neither  the  rain  nor  the  north 
wind.  On  Constitution  Place  in  Athens,  in  1843, 
the  Hellenic  spirit,  without  violence,  and  by  the  dis- 
play of  force  for  but  a  few  hours,  substituted  for  per- 
sonal power  in  Greece  a  constitutional  government 
as  free  as  that  of  England.  George  Finlay,  the  his- 
torian of  the  Greek  Revolution,  and  who  fought  in 
it,  affirms,  that  even  before  that  event,  degraded  as 
the  people  were  politically,  a  larger  proportion  could 
read  and  write  than  among  any  other  Christian  race 
in  Europe.  Undoubtedly  long  bondage,  acting  on 
the  native  adroitness  of  the  race,  taught  the  Greeks 
disingenuousness.  The  old  blood  produced  an  Alci- 
biades  as  well  as  a  Socrates,  a  Cleon  as  well  as  a  Pho- 
cion.  JThere  was  in  it,  as  in  American  veins  to-day, 
a  tendency  to  social,  commercial,  and  political  sharp- 
dealing.  But,  after  fifty  years  of  independence,  the 
Hellenic  spirit  devotes  a  larger  percentage  of  public 
revenue  to  purposes  of  instruction  than  France,  Italy, 
England,  Germany,  or  even  the  United  States.  Mod- 
ern Greece,  fifty  years  ago  a  slave  and  a  beggar,  to- 
day, by  the  confession  of  the  most  merciless  statisti- 
cians, its  enemies,  stands  at  the  head  of  the  list  of 
self-educated  nations. 

Railways,  as  even  the  less  sanguine  at  Athens 
now  hope,  must,  at  no  very  distant  period,  cut  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth,  and  the  green,  fat  Boeotian  Plain. 


292  ORTHODOXY. 

They  will  bring  the  "Western  Patras  and  the  Northern 
Larissa  into  communication  with  Athens.  Possibly 
the  Piraeus,  or  Cape  Sunium,  and  not  Brindisi,  may 
one  day  become  the  point  of  departure  from  Europe, 
of  mails  to  the  East  from  London,  Berlin,  and  St. 
Petersburg.  Greece  desires  to  connect  a  Larissa  rail- 
way with  a  Turkish  railway,  soon  to  pierce  the  iron 
gates  of  the  Danube. 

If  there  is  to  be  a  reconstruction  of  the  Turkish 
territory,  shall  not  Greece  recover  her  Macedonian 
provinces?  Ten  thousand  people  assembled  lately 
in  the  Pnyx  at  Athens,  before  the  Bema  of  Demos- 
thenes, to  consider  that  question.  (See  GLADSTONE, 
"The  Hellenic  Factor  in  the  Eastern  Question," 
Contemporary  Review,  December,  1876.) 

William  Pitt  said,  in  1792,  that  the  true  doctrine 
of  the  balance  of  power  in  the  east  of  Europe  was, 
that  the  influence  of  Russia  should  not  be  allowed  to 
increase,  nor  that  of  Turkey  to  decline.  Wellington 
called  the  confirmation  of  Greek  independence  by 
the  victory  of  Navarino  an  untoward  event.  Daniel 
Webster  and  Henry  Clay,  however,  whose  deaths 
were  as  sincerely  mourned  in  Greece  as  in  America, 
hailed  that  battle  as  the  triumph  of  a  sister-people  in 
a  struggle  which  the  United  States  were  the  first 
among  nations  to  encourage  officially. 

George  Canning  hoped,  and  Athens  has  not  ceased 
to  dream,  that  a  regenerated  Greece  might,  from 
Athens  and  Constantinople,  regenerate  all  the  now 
subject  Greek  races  on  both  shores  of  the  -<Egean. 
Of  the  fifteen  million  of  the  population  of  European 


PARKER  AS   AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    293 

Turkey,  less  than  four  millions  are  Ottomans.  The 
rest  —  Slavonians,  Greeks,  Wallachians,  Albanians  — 
profess  the  Greek  religion,  or  speak  the  Greek  dialect. 
Demosthenes,  Miltiades,  Themistocles,  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed, would  adopt  the  Hellenic  idea,  were  they 
now  in  Greece.  But,  as  a  late  American  ambassador 
at  Athens  affirms,  these  men  are  remembered  by  the 
modern  Greek  as  if  they  were  yesterday  on  the 
Acropolis.  In  polyglot  Turkey  there  are  peoples, 
but  no  people.  To-day  it  is  calculated,  that,  count- 
ing by  individuals,  the  Greeks  in  European  Turkey 
are  to  the  Turks  as  six  to  one ;  but,  estimating  them 
by  their  wealth,  they  are  as  thirty  to  one.  In  view 
of  these  facts,  and  with  the  clash  of  Russian  arms  on 
the  Danube,  shall  we  not  renew  our  enthusiasm  for 
Greece  ?  [Applause.] 

THE    LECTURE. 

In  the  first  century  of  its  existence  our  nation  has 
twice  been  washed  in  blood ;  and  to-day  we  draw 
nigh  to  that  anniversary  on  which,  through  an  extent 
of  territory  broader  than  Caesar  ever  ruled  over,  you 
will  decorate  uncounted  graves,  a  great  proportion 
of  which  are  filled  by  men  of  my  generation.  Look 
on  the  marbles,  which,  before  this  month  closes,  you 
will  cover  with  spring  flowers,  and  you  will  find  that 
a  very  large  part  of  those  who  laid  down  their  lives 
in  the  civil  war  were  men  between  twenty-five  and 
thirty-five  years  of  age.  My  generation  in  America 
is  and  always  will  be  a  remnant.  Such  of  us  as  are 
left  must  be  excused  if  we  remember  that  it  is  not 


294  ORTHODOXY. 

long,  at  the  longest,  from  now  to  the  roll-call  after 
the  battle ;  and  that  very  soon  we  shall  see  those  who 
have  already  laid  down  their  lives  that  the  dolorous 
and  accursed  ages  might  a  little  change  their  course. 
Assembled  at  the  very  tombstones  we  are  about  to 
decorate,  will  you  not  allow  me  to  say, -that,  if  the 
Church  had  done  its  whole  duty  in  the  fifty  years 
preceding  the  time  in  which  our  land  was  bathed  in 
blood,  my  generation  might  not  have  been  a  fragment? 
for  that  moral  apathy  in  the  North  which  allowed 
the  South  to  hope  for  a  divided  North  would  not 
have  existed  ;  and,  had  the  South  not  had  that  hope, 
who  knows  that  she  would  have  dared  to  have  as- 
sailed the  Union  in  arms  ?  Had  every  pulpit  in  the 
land  done  what  a  few  pulpits  did,  —  and  what  all 
would  have  done,  had  they  not  lost  the  Master's  whip 
of  small  cords,"  twice  knotted  up  in  the  temple  of  old, 
but  almost  forgotten  in  a  luxurious  age,  —  there  might 
have  been  no  need  at  last  for  Almighty  Providence 
to  seize  the  North  by  the  nape  of  the  neck,  and  throw 
it  across  a  chasm  filled  with  corpses  to  the  firm 
land  of  justice.  [Applause.] 

It  was  Almighty  God  who  abolished  slavery.  The 
Church  to-day,  at  the  edge  of  these  martyrs'  graves, 
must  beware  of  two  things,  —  pride  in  what  God 
has  accomplished,  and  a  tendency  to  self-excuse  for 
not  having  used  her  Master's  whip  of  small  cords. 
That  whip  will  be  needed  yet  in  America.  It  must 
not  go  out  of  fashion  on  this  continent.  There  is  a 
long,  crowded,  seething  future  before  us  in  this  land. 
Having  twice  been  washed  in  blood  against  our 


PARKER  AS  AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    295 

anticipation,  is  it  fit  for  us,  now  that  we  are  at  peace 
again,  and  now  that  the  subtle  sorcery  qf  luxury  has 
come  to  us  once  more  out  of  the  death  of  our  mar- 
tyrs, to  forget  them,  and  to  forget  God,  and  make 
unfashionable  even  yet  our  Lord's  example  of  pur- 
ging the  temple  ?  Why,  you  could  excuse  me  better 
for  being  too  severe  to-day  than  for  being  an  apol- 
ogist for  public  immorality.  We  want  as  our  lead- 
er not  some  soft  person  brought  up  in  king's  pal- 
aces, and  afraid  of  the  shaking  of  a  reed.  We 
want  Him  who  twice,  with  indignation  upon  which 
men  dared  not  look,  purged  the  temple,  saying,  —  as 
he  said  lately  to  America,  in  accents  with  which  the 
awe-struck  air  ought  to  be  made  permanently  alive, 
and  as  he  will  have  occasion  to  say  again  and  again 
before  another  thousand  years  shall  have  wheeled 
and  burned  above  our  good  and  evil,  —  "  Take  these 
things  hence  !  "  On  the  side  of  that  Eternal  Power 
not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness,  Amer- 
ica was  not  a  unit ;  and  therefore  she  fell  for  a  while 
beneath  those  high  and  flaming  chariot-wheels  which 
move  evermore  in  universal  history  whithersoever 
Justice  wills.  There  is  a  prospect  that  America  may 
not  be  a  unit  in  time  to  come  in  loving  what  that 
Power  loves,  and  in  hating  what  it  hates ;  and  there- 
fore there  is  reason  for  remembering  our  past,  and 
sowing  in  the  fat,  ploughed  field  of  our  bitter  days, 
and  in  all  the  great  and  yet  smoking  furrows  of  our 
chastisement,  abundant  seed  of  conscience.  This  is 
a  good  time  to  speak  a  solemn  word,  that  may  take 
root,  and  bring  forth  fruit  in  politics,  in  trade  and  in 
every  man's  secret  moral  sense.  [Applause.] 


296  ORTHODOXY. 

What  could  the  Church  have  done  against  slavery 
that  it  did  not  do  ? 

1.  It  could  have  made  slaveholding  a  bar  to 
church-membership. 

One  great  denomination  did  that,  —  great  in  qual- 
ity, not  in  quantity  —  the  Quakers.  It  was  their 
good-fortune  to  have  established  a  right  precedent  as 
to  slavery  before  the  Cave  of  JEolus  was  opened,  and 
the  winds  of  all  division  began  to  blow  upon  us  from 
unoccupied  territory  coveted  by  the  slave-power. 

Eli  Whitney,  in  1794,  invented  the  cotton-gin. 
The  British  fleet,  in  1803,  hovered  off  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  sold  to  us 
Louisiana.  With  that  purchase  the  Cave  of  ^olus, 
who  imprisons  tempests  within  his  bellowing  moun- 
tains, was  opened.  When  the  winds  had  blown  out 
of  it  until  it  was  substantially  vacant,  unexpectedly 
in  the  depths  of  the  cave  opened  another  ^Eolus  Cave, 
—  Texas.  After  the  winds  blowing  out  of  that  had 
tossed  our  whole  ocean  into  yeasting,  yellow  foam, 
suddenly,  in  the  rear  of  that  jEolus  Cave,  opened 
another,  —  California  and  the  Mexican  war.  Then 
came  a  yet  more  huge  enlargement  of  the  cave,  in 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  the 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  struggle.  We  saw  the  gleam- 
ing of  the  western  sea  through  the  last  opening  of 
the  cavern.  God  be  thanked  that  the  bowels  of  the 
mountains  were  exhausted  at  last,  and  that  we  had 
no  more  unoccupied  territory  !  To  this  fully  opened 
colossal  prison-house  of  winds  we  found  no  door  that 
could  be  bolted,  except  one  made  of  corpses.  We 


PAEKEE  AS   AN  ANTISLAVEEY  EEFOEMEE.    297 

had  to  block  it  up  at  last,  the  whole  mouth  of  our 
unmeasured  ^Eolus  Cavern,  by  the  dead  bodies  of 
North  and  South.  It  is  blocked  to  this  day  by  that 
immovable  and  costly  mound. 

Now,  before  this  ^Eolus  Cave  was  opened,  before 
the  cotton-gin  had  lifted  the  value  of  a  slave-hand 
to  a  thousand  dollars,  and  of  a  black  infant  at  birth 
to  one  hundred  dollars,  we  find  the  Quaker  sect 
putting  itself  right  by  assuming  that  a  man  can- 
not be  a  church-member  of  the  genuine  kind,  if  he 
owns  slaves.  George  Fox  visited  the  Barbadoes  in 
1671,  and  thereafter  bore  earnest  testimony  against 
slavery.  In  1776  the  Philadelphia  meeting  of  Quak- 
ers took  a  decisive  step  by  directing  —  this  was  their 
language  — "  that  the  owners  of  slaves  who  refuse 
to  execute  the  proper  instruments  for  giving  them 
their  freedom  be  disowned,"  that  is,  disfellowshipped 
in  the  Church.  In  1783  it  was  officially  ascertained 
that  no  slaves  were  owned  by  Quakers  inside  the 
domain  of  the  Philadelphia  Assembly.  But  the 
New-York  and  Rhode-Island  and  Virginia  Yearly 
Meetings  of  the  Friends  attained  slowly  the  same 
results.  In  1800,  before  we  purchased  Louisiana, 
slavery  and  Quakerism  were  fulty  divided.  What 
cut  them  asunder  ?  Simply  the  righteous  rule  of  a 
spiritual  church-membership,  —  the  rule  to  which  we 
have  been  drifting,  I  hope,  more  and  more  in  Ameri- 
ca, in  all  our  sad  experience  since  1631. 

Wordsworth,  in  spite  of  the  intensity  of  his  early 
sympathy  with  republicanism,  was  accustomed  to  say 
that  America  never  can  have  a  class  pure  enough  and 


298  OETHODOXY. 

weighty  enough  to  keep  up  a  high  standard  of  man- 
ners and  morals ;  for  here  we  have  no  aristocracy. 
Stuart  Mill  thought  it  our  great  fault  that  we  have 
no  leisured  and  propertied  class.  God  forbid  that  we 
should  have  a  law  of  primogeniture,  giving  all  the 
lands  in  a  family  to  the  eldest-born !  God  forbid 
that  we  should  have  an  aristocracy  built  on  heredita- 
ry descent  merely,  or  on  artificial  rather  than  a  natu- 
ral rank !  But  unless  there  is  in  this  land  a  spiritual 
church-membership,  or  an  aristocracy  appointed  of 
Almighty  God,  who  knows  but  that  Wordsworth 
was  right  in  saying  that  our  standard  of  morals  and 
manners  may  become  of  the  earth,  earthy,  and  lead 
to  the  Pit  ?  "  Men  never  so  much  need  to  be  theo- 
cratic," said  De  Tocqueville,  "  as  when  they  are  the 
most  democratic."  I  hold  that  it  is  more  impor- 
tant to  maintain  a  spiritual  church-membership  than 
to  maintain  the  written  constitution.  [Applause.] 
The  unwritten  constitution  of  America  is  more  im- 
portant than  its  written ;  and  the  first  article  in  the 
unwritten  ought  to  be  one  that  makes  a  distinction 
between  a  true  church  and  its  opposite.  What  is 
the  average  type  of  a  counterfeit  church  ?  A  ham- 
mock, attached  on  one  side  to  the  Cross,  and,  on  the 
other,  held  and  swung  to  and  fro  by  the  forefingers 
of  Mammon,  its  freight  of  nominal  Christians  ele- 
gantly moaning  meanwhile  over  the  evils  of  the 
times,  and  not  at  ease,  unless  fanned  by  eloquence 
and  music,  and  sprinkled  by  social  adulations  into 
perfumed,  unheroic  slumber. 

There   is  a  distinction  between  a  church  and  a 


PARKER  AS   AN  AJSTTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    299 

Sunday  club,  —  the  distinction  which  Whitefield  and 
Edwards  drew  on  the  mind  of  New  England,  and 
which  the  remissness  of  many  churches,  and  the 
faithfulness  of  others,  in  our  civil  war,  ought  to  en- 
grave yet  deeper  on  the  slowly  solidifying  rock  of 
American  social  custom.  Let  that  distinction  stand 
as  the  first  article  of  your  unwritten  constitution,  if 
you  would  make  sure  that  a  day  will  not  come  when 
an  average  population  of  two  hundred  to  the  square 
mile  may  take  your  written  constitution,  and  chop  it 
in  pieces  in  the  name  of  greed  and  fraud,  and  of 
great  cities.  You  do  not  in  any  case  anticipate  that? 
Your  trouble  is  that  you  are  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
always  think  there  is  no  danger,  until  you  are  burned 
to  the  bone.  We  said  there  was  no  danger  in  the 
war-cloud  of  slavery ;  but  really  it  amounted  to  more 
than  a  shower. 

The  Quaker  sect  put  itself  right  by  honoring  the  first 
article  of  the  unwritten  American  Constitution.  They 
executed  it.  They  made  a  distinction  between  church- 
membership  that  held  slaves,  and  church-membership 
that  did  not.  If  you  ask  me  what  the  Church  at  large 
could  have  done,  I  affirm  that  it  could,  little  by  little, 
have  done  everywhere  what  it  did  in  several  places. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  last  century,  England,  under 
distinctively  Christian  leadership,  determined  unalter- 
ably her  position  as  to  slavery.  It  was  the  supreme 
misfortune  of  America,  that  she  did  not  keep  step  with 
Wilberforce  and  Clarkson  and  the  father  of  Macau- 
lay.  When  the  Quakers  established  their  suggestive 
precedent,  we  might  have  done  the  same,  had  not 


300  ORTHODOXY. 

many  of  our  fathers  been  asleep.  Why  they  were 
off  their  guard,  you  will  understand  by  a  glance  at 
what  the  demoralizations  of  war  and  of  French  infi- 
delity were  doing  for  us  in  1795.  The  cotton-gin 
came  when  we  were  weak  from  Parisian  poison. 
The  .ZEolus  Cave  of  coveted  territory  was  opened 
when  we  were  feeble  from  a  long  course  of  unfor- 
tunate experiences,  beginning  in  1631.  But,  even 
after  temptation  grew  fierce,  who,  with  the  history 
of  subsequent  American  heroism  before  him,  can  say 
that  we  could  not  have  taken  up  our  cross,  instead 
of  trampling  upon  it  ?  We  could  have  stood  on  the 
proposition  that  church-membership  is  inconsistent 
with  man-stealing;  and,  indeed,  there  is  where  the 
Presbyterian  Assembly  stood  in  1793. 

2.  We  could  have  acted  on  the  fixed  plan,  not  of 
adapting  Christianity  to  slavery,  but  of  adapting 
slavery  to  Christianity. 

Say  that  the  rule  adopted  by  the  Friends  was  too 
radical  a  measure ;  say  that  we  could  not  have 
strained  up  the  North  to  this  point:  one  hardly 
knows  what  prolonged,  multiplex,  conscientious  dis- 
cussion can  do  in  a  free  nation.  My  feeling  is,  that 
the  Quaker  ideal  was  not  too  high  for  most  of  us  to 
have  reached  by  effort  in  1800.  It  is  farther  back  to 
1850  than  it  is  to  1800  in  the  history  of  slavery. 
Even  in  the  era  of  compromises,  we  could  at  least  have 
settled  on  the  principle,  that,  when  Christianity  comes 
into  collision  with  wrong,  evil,  and  not  Christianity, 
is  to  compromise.  There  will  be  a  time  in  America 
when  the  expedients  of  our  fathers  in  regard  to 


PARKER  AS  AN  AKTTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    301 

slavery  will  not  look  well.  It  will  not  be  remem- 
bered with  pleasure  that  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly,  although  in  1794  it  denounced  slavehold- 
ing  as  man-stealing,  erased  that  denunciation  in  the 
General  Assembly  of  1816.  I  know  that  Methodist 
discipline  could  with  great  difficulty  be  reconciled 
with  slavery,  and  that  it  was  never  made  clear  to  any 
Methodist  scholar  that  bishops  could  be  permitted 
to  hold  slaves.  Macaulay  said  that  John  Wesley's 
genius  for  government  was  not  inferior  to  that  of 
Richelieu.  But,  in  spite  of  the  excellence  of  the 
Methodist  organization,  slavery  produced  the  seces- 
sion of  the  Methodist  Church  South,  —  a  great  evil, 
and  yet  an  honor  to  the  North.  But  the  Church 
South  was  part  of  the  Church  ;  and  when  I  speak  of 
the  delinquency  of  the  Church,  of  course  I  have  an 
outlook  extending  to  the  Gulf.  I  am  not  here  to-day 
to  blame  the  Northern  Church  exclusively.  The 
Southern  Church  was  a  part  of  God's  house ;  and  its 
action  before  and  during  the  war  has  helped  to  make 
sceptics.  It  is  a  cruel  and  terrible  thing  to  force  edu- 
cated young  men  to  raise  the  question,  whether  the 
manliness  inside  of  the  Church  is  of  a  purer  quality 
than  that  outside.  There  are  forms  of  scepticism 
concerning  the  First  and  Second  Epistles  of  Clement, 
and  the  Letter  by  Diognetus  to  the  Pamphylians.  I 
do  not  care  greatly  about  this  kind  of  mental  unrest. 
But  when  the  question  arises,  whether  manliness  is 
to  be  found  inside  or  outside  of  God's  house,  remem- 
ber that  the  first  duty  of  the  Church  is  to  be  despised 
by  no  man !  [Applause.]  And  if  we  so  acted,  that 


302  ORTHODOXY. 

many  a  young  man,  full  of  that  enthusiasm  which 
afterwards  led  him  to  the  front  at  Gettysburg  and 
Richmond,  did  not  know  by  any  light  on  our  counte- 
nances whether  we  were  more  manly  than  our  critics 
or  not ;  if  we  so  acted  that  some  were  sickened,  and 
turned  aside,  —  it  was  because  we  compromised. 

It  was  my  fortune  but  a  few  days  ago  to  hear  the 
poet  Whittier  say,  in  that  sea-blown  city  of  Newbury- 
port  yonder,  where  the  roof  yet  stands  under  which 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  born,  that  Mr.  Garrison 
himself,  in  his  earlier  career,  was  a  friend  of  ministers, 
and,  indeed,  might  have  been  called,  perhaps,  a  Cal- 
vinist  of  the  strict  type.  He  believed  too  much  in 
ministers ;  he  made  them  idols ;  and  when  his  sympa- 
thies were  penetratingly  enlisted  in  one  of  the  great- 
est of  modern  reforms,  and  he  found  that  many 
ministers  were  not  on  his  side,  the  instant  and  sur- 
prised recoil  was  of  that  intense  sort  which  conies 
when  we  fall  into  anger  with  those  we  love.  Again 
and  again  a  similar  amazement  was  the  source  of  the 
vigor  and  the  breadth  of  the  recoil  from  accredited 
Christianity  in  many  of  the  antislavery  men.  Henry 
C.  Wright  was  a  Congregational  minister.  There 
were  subsidiary  men ;  and  some  of  them,  I  think,  were 
deformers  as  well  as  reformers,  —  Parker  Pillsbury, 
and  S.  S.  Foster,  and  others.  Within  the  circle  of 
a  hundred  miles'  radius  from  Boston  you  can  find 
hundreds  of  influential  citizens,  and  at  least  a  score 
of  divided  or  weakened  churches,  whose  difficulties 
with  the  ministers  began,  as  Garrison's  did,  by  the 
operation  of  that  principle  which  Coleridge  describes 
in  his  "  Christabel :  "  — 


PARKER  AS  AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    303 

"  Alas !  they  had  been  friends  in  youth ; 
But  whispering  tongues  can  poison  truth, 

And  constancy  lives  in  realms  above ; 
And  life  is  thorny,  and  youth  is  vain ; 

And  to  be  wroth  with  one  we  love 
Doth  work  like  madness  on  the  brain." 

3.  In  the  South  the  Church  could  have  refused  to 
justify,  and  in  the  North  to  apologize  for,  slavery. 

4.  In  the  South  it  could  have  refused  to  uphold 
secession  and  the  attempt  to  found  an   empire  on 
human  chattelhood. 

5.  In  the  North,  by  discussion  and  united  action, 
it  .could  have   prevented   that   moral  and  political 
apathy  which  encouraged  the  South  to  hope  for  a 
divided  North  in  the  event  of  war. 

6.  It  could  have  taken  away  power  from  deformers 
by  putting  itself  on  the  side  of  reformers. 

So  much,  my  friends,  must  we  not  and  do  we  not 
all  admit,  when  we  say  that  the  Northern  Church, 
as  well  as  the  Southern  Church,  or  the  American 
Church  at  large,  did  not  do  its  whole  duty  in  the 
conflict  with  slavery  ? 

Are  there  any  excuses  for  the  crime  of  the  North  ? 
I  will  make  none  for  that  of  the  South ;  and  I  am 
not  at  ease  in  mentioning  any  for  the  North.  [Ap- 
plause.] These  are  no  excuses;  they  are  hardly 
explanations : 

1.  Daniel   Webster  was    the   archbishop    of    the 
Northern  Church.     [Applause.]  • 

2.  Among  antislavery  men  deformers  were  sadly 
mingled  with  reformers.    About  1839  Mr.  Garrison, 


304  ORTHODOXY. 

for  a  considerable  period,  united  anti-Church  and 
anti-Sabbath  with  his  antislavery  discussions.  Some 
of  the  more  radical  abolitionists  were  avowedly  seces- 
sionists; but  it  was  political  abolition  which  tri- 
umphed. 

3.  Political  abolition  the  North  had  no   right  to 
apply  to  slavery  in  the  States,  except  as  an  extreme 
measure.     Almost  unanimously  the  Northern  Church 
resisted  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  Territories. 

4.  A  conflict  of  political  and  commercial  interests 
and  duties  on  the  one  hand,  with  religious  interests 
and  duties  on  the  Other,  strained  the  voluntary  sys- 
tem  of  the  American  churches  across  its  weakest 
part. 

Evil  exceedingly,  my  friends,  is  that  day  in  any 
nation  when  political  and  religious  interests  run  in 
opposite  channels.  These  opposing  currents  make 
the  whirlpool  that  impales  faith  on  the  tusks  of  the 
sea.  When  Chevalier  Bunsen  lay  dying,  he  said, 
"God  be  thanked  that  Italy  is  free.  Now  thirty 
millions  of  people  can  believe  that  God  governs  the 
world."  The  average  German  peasant,  twenty  years 
ago,  regarded  his  minister  as  merely  an  agent  of  the 
government,  and  spoke  contemptuously  of  police 
Christianity,  because  the  State  Church  in  the  father- 
land was,  until  within  a  few  years,  very  frequently 
an  ally  of  absolutism.  In  the  United  States,  while 
the  compromise  measures  were  under  debate,  political 
ideas  ran  in  one  direction,  and  religious  duties  in 
another.  The  immense  interests  of  commerce  often 
held  the  pulpit,  as  well  as  the  press,  in  bondage. 


PARKEB  AS   AN  ANTISLAVEKY  KEFOKMEE.    305 

The  payment  of  Southern  debts  —  have  you  ever 
heard  that  theme  discussed  in  whispers?  Webster 
had  his  eyes  constantly  on  Wall  Street.  Wendell 
Phillips  would  stand  here  in  Boston,  with  his  eyes  on 
the  conscience  of  the  nation,  a  very  different  barom- 
eter ;  and  he  would  say,  "  There  is  a  storm  singing 
already  in  all  the  winds.  We  shall  escape  from 
slavery  only  by  civil  war."  Webster  would  reply, 
looking  at  the  citations  in  Wall  Street,  "  There  has 
not  yet  been  any  large  fluctuation  in  prices.  Gentle- 
men are  not  serious  when  they  talk  of  secession. 
Let  us  repress  agitation,  and  tide  through  the  crisis 
without  war."  Both  the  moral  and  the  financial 
barometer  must  be  kept  in  view  by  any  eyes  that 
wouM  read  the  signs  of  modern  times.  In  the  rising 
price  of  slave-property  we  had  a  thermometer  of 
threatening  aspect,  on  which  the  North  cast  a  too 
careless  gaze.  A  hundred  dollars  for  a  black  infant, 
ten  dollars  a  pound  for  a  black  boy,  a  thousand  or 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  for  a  good  field-hand,  —  and 
still  this  thermometer  and  the  wailing  breeze  rose, 
and  the  winds  out  of  the  JEolus  Cave  resounded 
more  and  more  loudly ;  the  murky  threat  of  coming 
war  hung  above  all  business  and  bosoms;  and  yet 
so  were  we  filled  with  Anglo-Saxon  pride,  so  little 
foresight  did  we  have,  that  Wall  Street  was  hardly 
troubled  up  to  the  very  hour  when  we  could  no 
longer  doubt  that  there  was  to  be  a  deluge  of  blood. 

Webster  hoped  we  should  pass  through  the  crisis 
without  civil  war,  and  could  hardly  have  made  more 
gigantic  efforts  to  have  averted  the  contest,  had  he 


306  ORTHODOXY. 

foreseen  what  was  to  come,  as  probably  he  did,  far 
better  than  some  have  thought.  I  know  with  what 
silence  I  should  sit  in  this  assembly,  were  any  one  of 
five  hundred  scholars  here  the  speaker ;  I  should  be 
quiet  in  this  presence.  But  it  is  my  good  or  ill  for- 
tune here  to  be  responsible  to  nobody,  as  no  one  is  to 
me ;  and  therefore  let  me  say,  that  my  personal  feel- 
ing is,  that  Webster,  from  first  to  last,  was  honest, 
and  that  he  ventured  much,  because  he  had  great 
foresight.  I  believe  that  man  anticipated,  with  a  ful- 
ness we  can  but  poorly  understand  from  any  of  his 
public  expressions,  the  terrors  of  our  civil  war.  Judge 
Nesmyth,  on  the  Merrimack  yonder,  at  Franklin,  who 
conversed  over  and  over  with  Webster  in  his  last 
years,  on  his  Speech  of  March  7,  and  who  i*  often 
quoted  in  Curtis's  Life  of  Webster,  as  final  authority, 
said  to  me  the  other  day,  "  Once  at  Elms  Farm  I 
was  returning  home  in  the  sunset  with  Webster ;  and 
he  turned  upon  me  suddenly,  and,  in  his  deepest 
supernatural  voice,  said,  4  You  may  regard  me  as  ex- 
travagant ;  but  I  have  had  some  experience  with  both 
Northern  and  Southern  men.  I  probably  shall  not 
live  to  see  the  Potomac  run  red  with  blood;  but  I 
think  you  will.' "  That  was  within  six  months  of 
the  time  when,  on  the  shore  of  the  sea  at  Marsh- 
field  yonder,  that  man  went  hence.  No  doubt  he 
was  ambitious ;  but  he  was  too  great  a  man  to  be 
supremely  ambitious.  In  secret,  as  well  as  in  public, 
he  prayed,  that,  when  his  eyes  should  be  turned 
to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun  in  heaven,  they 
might  not  see  him  shining  on  the  broken  and  dis- 


PARKER  AS  AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    307 

honored  fragments  of  a  once  glorious  Union,  —  on 
States  dissevered,  discordant,  belligerent.  He  fore- 
saw what  this  land  would  look  like,  drenched  in  Get- 
tysburgs  and  Richmonds.  But  he  was  taken  hence 
before  he  had  time  to  right  himself  in  the  public 
estimation.  No  doubt  he  went  to  extremes.  He 
was  a  statesman.  He  probably  had  not  a  sufficiently 
active  perception  of  the  moral  issues  in  the  whole 
discussion  of  his  time.  Who  was  it  that  wrote  to 
Andover  to  ask  Moses  Stuart  to  publish  a  pamphlet 
to  befog  the  conscience  of  the  North  ?  Daniel  Web- 
ster. (See  STUART,  Conscience  and  the  Constitution, 
p.  18.)  Did  Moses  Stuart  do  this  ?  He  did  it  so  far 
as  to  defend  vigorously  the  Speech  of  March  7.  He 
wrote  some  other  things,  however,  which  we  hope  will 
counteract  the  ill-effect  of  this  pamphlet.  To  whom 
else  did  Webster  afford  an  opportunity  to  befog 
the  conscience  of  the  North?  To  that  other  pro- 
fessor, who  to-day  is  perhaps  the  first  theologian  visible 
in  America  when  scholars  in  Europe  look  toward  us 
from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Did  he  agree  to 
do  what  Webster  asked  ?  He  refused  with  foresight. 
Professor  Park  had  opportunity  to  do  what  Moses 
Stuart  did,  and  at  that  time  was  ready  to  defy  the 
archbishop  of  the  Northern  Church.  [Applause.] 
That  fact  never  has  been  made  public  until  this 
hour ;  but  it  lies  here  before  me  in  writing,  not  from 
any  professor,  but  from  a  man  whose  authority  is 
equal  on  that  point  to  any  professor's.  (^Letter  from 
Rev.  Dr.  C.  GUSHING  of  Boston.)  Professor  Ed- 
wards at  Andover  had  opportunity  to  do  what  Moses 
Stuart  did,  and  refused. 


308  ORTHODOXY. 

But  how  did  Boston  stand  in  that  hour  ?  Why, 
in  Music  Hall  yonder  was  the  tallest  antislavery  pul- 
pit this  side  of  Brooklyn.  What  made  that  pulpit 
tall,  —  anti-Christianity,  or  antislavery  ?  Let  Charles 
Sumner  answer.  Here  is  a  short,  strategic  corre- 
spondence which  throws  light  upon  the  inmost  history 
of  Boston.  In  1854  Theodore  Parker  was  arrested 
for  resisting  the  Fugitive-slave  Law,  and  came  near 
being  thrown  into  jail,  as  did  Wendell  Phillips. 
Charles  Sumner  wrote  to  Mr.  Parker  Dec.  12,  1854 : 
"  Upon  the  whole,  I  regard  your  indictment  as  a  call 
to  a  new  parish,  with  B.  R.  Curtis  and  B.  F.  Hallet 
as  deacons,  and  a  pulpit  higher  than  the  Strasburg 
steeple."  Theodore  Parker  replied,  Dec.  15:  "In 
1845  my  friends  passed  a  resolution  that  Theodore 
Parker  should  have  a  chance  to  be  heard  in  Boston. 
The  two  loToihers-in-law,  Benjamin  C.  and  Benjamin 
H.,  now  second  the  resolution,  —  a  chance  to  be 
heard !  (WEISS,  Life  of  Parker,  vol.  ii.  p.  144.) 

You  say  I  have  not  given  Theodore  Parker  all  the 
credit  he  deserves  as  a  religious  reformer?  You 
think  I  have  underrated  him  as  a  philosopher  ?  If 
you  please,  I  give  you  his  own  estimate  of  himself. 
"  Last  year,"  he  wrote  in  1851,  "  I  laid  out  much ;  but 
how  little  of  it  I  did !  The  wicked  Fugitive-slave 
Law  came,  and  hindered  all  my  work.  It  may  be  so 
again.  Suppose  I  could  have  given  all  the  attention 
to  theology  that  I  have  been  forced  to  pay  to  politics 
and  slavery,  how  much  I  might  have  done !  I  was 
meant  for  a  philosopher;  but  the  times  call  for  a 
stump  orator  "  (WEISS,  Life  of  Parker,  vol.  ii.  p. 
115). 


PAKKEK   AS  AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    309 

What  made  that  pulpit  busy,  —  antislavery,  or 
anti-Christianity?  In  the  year  1851  a  publishing 
firm  to  whom  Theodore  Parker  had  offered  two  vol- 
umes of  speeches  asked  him  if  they  would  contain 
any  discussions  relating  to  slavery.  He  replied,  "  By 
all  means :  they  are  the  principal  things.  I  wish  to 
go  down  to  posterity,  as  far  as  I  shall  go  at  all, 
with  the  antislavery  sermons  and  speeches  in  my 
right  hand."  [Applause.]  (Ibid.,  p.  115.)  Boston 
sends  Theodore  Parker  to  posterity  with  his  anti- 
slavery  speeches  in  his  right  hand,  and  no  hurricane 
of  criticism  shall  ever  blow  them  out  of  his  manly 
grasp:  but  in  his  left  hand  anti-Christianity  was 
clutched  loosely;  and  already  the  winds  have  torn 
these  leaves  away,  and  the  hand  is  nearly  empty,  and 
will  yet  be  emptier.  [Applause.] 

This  biography  says  that  Mr.  Parker  thought,  in 
the  early  stage  of  his  discussions  of  religious  science, 
that  he  could  complete  in  ten  years  a  projected  book 
on  that  theme.  Compared  with  average  German 
work  in  the  same  field,  the  outlines  of  this  volume 
(Ibid.,  pp.  49-67)  are  fragmentary  and  careless,  and 
are  plainly  what  Parker  called  them,  only  a  "pro- 
visional scheme."  Did  he  ever  fill  up  these  out- 
lines ?  Mr.  Weiss  admits  that  he  was  too  preoccupied 
to  do  so.  "Time,"  says  this  candid  biographer, 
"diminished  rapidly;  and  all  literary  and  scientific 
pursuits  were  rudely  thrust  aside  l>y  the  domination  of 
slavery  in  the  thoughts  and  affairs  of  the  nation " 
(Ibid.,  p.  67).  It  needs  to  be  frequently  stated,  that 
Theodore  Parker's  Absolute  Religion  was  a  system 


310  ORTHODOXY. 

of  thought  which  he  arranged  before  he  came  to 
Boston.  It  was  a  West  Roxbury  creed.  Boston 
need  not  be  so  proud  of  it.  It  was  not  built  here. 
If  it  had  been,  no  doubt  it  would  have  lasted. 

What  was  happening  when  Theodore  Parker  came 
to  Boston,  and  in  the  twelve  years  he  passed  here  ? 
Why,  he  reached  this  city  in  1846 ;  and  what  year 
was  that  ?  The  year  after  Texas  had  been  acquired, 
and  the  winds  were  howling  for  the  Mexican  war. 
We  remember  these  great  events  so  poorly,  that  it  is 
necessary  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact,  that,  in 
1845,  Henry  Clay  was  defeated ;  and  his  competitor, 
Mr.  Polk  —  whose  name  I  had  almost  forgotten :  I 
have  it  written  here,  but  I  could  not  see  it  well,  it  is 
so  small — began  to  defend  Texas  against  Mexico. 
In  1846  came  the  Mexican  war.  How  could  a  man 
think  of  any  thing  but  public  affairs  ?  In  1846  Frd- 
mont  captured  California.  In  1848  the  treaty  of 
Guadalupe  Hidalgo  gave  New  Mexico  and  California 
to  the  United  States.  In  1850  came  the  compromise 
measures,  including  the  law  for  the  rendition  of  fugi- 
tive slaves.  In  1852  Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  appears  in  March ;  and  the  Duchess  of  Suther- 
land in  November  sends  to  the  women  of  America 
an  address  signed  by  576,000  English  women.  In 

1854  Anthony  Burns  is  kidnapped  in   Boston.     In 

1855  election  riots  are  occurring  in  Kansas.    In  1856, 
on  the  2d  of  May,  Charles  Sumner  is  smitten  down 
in  the   Senate   of  the  nation  for  speaking   against 
slavery.     In  1856  Fremont  is  nominated,  and  Bucha- 
nan elected.    In  1857  we  are  listening  to  the  Dred 


PARKER  AS   AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    311 

Scott  decision.  In  1858  John  Brown  is  plotting  the 
deeds  which  brought  him  to  the  scaffold  in  Virginia.- 

During  all  these  years  the  grandson  of  that  soldier 
who  captured  the  first  British  gun  at  Lexington 
stood  in  a  pulpit  which  antislavery,  rather  than  anti- 
Christianity,  had  made  higher  than  the  Strasburg 
steeple.  Who  agreed  with  him?  Except  a  few 
harsh  expressions,  almost  everybody  that  had  con- 
science, so  far  as  his  antislavery  opinions  were  con- 
cerned. Did  every  one  who  agreed  with  Theodore 
Parker  in  his  antislavery  career  agree  with  him  in 
his  anti-Christian  discussions?  Here  is  an  answer 
in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Parker  from  him  who  afterwards 
was  our  great  chief  justice,  —  Salmon  P.  Chase.  [Ap- 
plause.] "  Shall  I  not  say  to  you  frankly  how  much 
I  regret,  that,  on  the  great  question  of  the  Divine 
origin  of  the  Bible  and  the  Divine  nature  of  Christ, 
your  views  are  so  little  in  harmony  with  the  views 
of  almost  all  who  labor  with  you  in  the  great  cause 
of  human  enfranchisement  and  progress ;  and  that  I 
could  not  help  wishing,  that,  in  this  sermon  on  the 
Nebraska  Question,  your  distinctive  opinions  had  not 
been  brought  forward?"  (WEISS,  Life  of  Parker, 
vol.  ii.  p.  517.)  This  is  very  interesting  and  unim- 
peachable historic  testimony. 

What  made  this  antislavery  pulpit  high?  The 
lowness  of  other  pulpits.  [Applause.]  Why  were 
not  other  pulpits  high  in  Boston?  Some  of  them 
faced  the  South.  Let  me  not  be  unjust  to  any  man ; 
but  I  suppose  the  undistorted  truth  to  be,  that  Or- 
thodoxy lacked  antislavery  leaders.  Its  ranks  and 


312  ORTHODOXY. 

files,  at  least  so  far  as  the  ministry  was  concerned, 
were  substantially  right  in  their  feeling  toward  slav- 
ery. Do  you  doubt  that  ?  I  have  been  at  great  pains 
to  examine  facts  and  contemporary  evidence ;  and  I 
find  it  incontrovertible,  though  I  cannot  here  go  into 
detail,  that,  in  the  year  1837,  nearly  one-half  of  the 
evangelical  ministers  in  Massachusetts  were  members 
of  antislavery  societies.  Of  the  Orthodox  Congre- 
gational ministry  of  Massachusetts,  more  than  one- 
third  were  members  of  anti-slavery  societies  in  1837. 
It  was  true  in  this  year  that  only  one  in  eight  of  the 
unevangelical  ministers  in  Massachusetts  were  in 
such  societies.  Such  was  the  elaborate  calculation 
made  and  published  at  the  time  by  Amos  A.  Phelps, 
whom,  as  the  foremost  Christian  abolitionist  of  that 
vexed  day,  Massachusetts  does  well  to  honor.  (See 
PHELPS,  Rev.  A.  A.,  j.he  True  History  of  the,  Late 
J)ivision  in  the  Antislavery  Societies.  Compare  the 
careful  statistics  given  by  Dr.  GUSHING  in  the  Con- 
gregational Quarterly,  October,  1876,  pp.  550,  554.) 
I  do  not  forget  that  the  crowned  martyrs  Lovejoy 
and  Torrey,  the  latter  of  whom  was  buried  from 
this  Temple,  were  Congregational  ministers.  Under 
Nathaniel  Colver  the  Baptist,  whose  church  met  in 
this  hall,  slaveholding  was  made  a  bar  to  church- 
membership.  But  during  the  larger  part  of  that 
period,  when,  in  the  pulpits  of  Eastern  Massachu- 
setts, Channing  and  Parker,  and  one  or  two  other 
very  able  men,  represented  prominently  the  anti- 
slavery  thought  of  the  time,  there  was  here  no  evan- 
gelical antislavery  pulpit  of  equal  prominence. 


PARKER   AS   AN  ANTISLAVERY  REFORMER.    313 

Nevertheless,  I  do  not  admit,  that,  even  with  Dan- 
iel Webster  and  Moses  Stuart  for  our  archbishops, 
the  mass  of  the  Orthodox  ministry  went  astray  fur- 
ther than  others ;  for  in  1837  nearly  one-half  of  them 
were  members  of  antislavery  societies. 

"What,  then,  was  the  trouble?  Simply  the  weak 
spot  in  our  voluntary  system.  You  cannot  feed  a 
man,  unless  he  is  popular  with  the  people  to  whom 
he  preaches.  Families  must  be  supported.  Opportu- 
nity of  usefulness  must  not  be  thrown  away.  Many 
lost  their  places.  "I  began  between  1830  and  1840," 
says  the  poet  Whittier,  "the  business  of  interview- 
ing. I  went  to  minister  after  minister,  and  was  dis- 
appointed in  case  after  case ;  but  the  general  feeling," 
he  affirms,  "  was  right.  It  was  only  a  regard  for 
families,  and  a  desire  not  to  produce  schism  in  the 
Church,  that  held  back  many  a  good  man."  That 
sound  heart  in  Amesbury  yonder,  in  sight  of  the  sea, 
that  soul  which  often  led  us  in  our  dark  days  as  a 
pillar  of  Hebrew  fire,  that  entranced  poet  and  re- 
former, never  broke  with  the  Church,  because  he  was 
in  a  part  of  it  that  had  adopted  God's  rule  of  exclud- 
ing from  church-membership  those  who  held  slaves. 
His  testimony  to-day  is  other  than  sour.  It  has  in  it 
no  sub-acidity  in  any  sense.  He  says  calmly,  "  The 
trouble  was  usually,  that  men  feared  they  would  lose 
their  places."  Who  brought  that  fear  upon  public 
teachers  ?  I  am  a  layman  ;  and  my  feeling  is,  that 
laymen  had  some  responsibility  in  this  matter.  Our 
reluctance  to  allow  free  discussion  arose  from  com- 
mercial causes.  More  than  one  merchant  here  in 


314  ORTHODOXY. 

Boston  may  have  heard  something  about  Southern 
debts  that  might  never  be  paid,  and  of  churches 
which  laymen  would  surely  rend  asunder,  if  slavery 
were  discussed  from  the  pulpit  too  much.  As  to 
slavery,  what  prevented  the  full  education  of  the 
average  public  heart  ?  The  average  public  heart  it- 
self. Some  ministers  here  may  have  looked  from 
their  pulpits,  and  remembered  what  merchants  were 
in  the  congregation,  and  been  silent  against  their 
choice.  It  is  possible  that  industrial,  commercial,  and 
social  considerations  were  so  powerfully  discussed 
among  our  laymen  as  to  gag  the  pulpit  not  a  little. 
Were  we  one  in  three  in  antislavery  societies  ?  The 
pulpit  behind  the  times!  Where  were  the  pews? 
[Applause.] 

But,  gentlemen,  I  believe  that  even  that  arch- 
bishop of  the  North,  had  he  lived  as  long  as  Everett 
did,  would  have  taken  as  easily  as  Everett  took  a 
new  position  as  to  slavery  and  the  Union.  Had 
Daniel  Webster  lived  to  hear  the  first  gun  fired 
against  Fort  Sumter,  and  its  echoes  rolling  across 
belligerent  commonwealths,  and  reverberated  from 
the  Alleghanies  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  he  would 
have  stamped  his  foot  down  in  behalf  of  the  Consti- 
tution with  an  emphasis  that  would  have  shaken 
both  those  ridges ;  and  to  have  called  forth  millions 
of  armed  men  in  defence  of  the  Union  there  would 
have  been  needed  no  other  drum-beat.  [Applause.] 


XI. 

THE  SOURCES  OF  THEODOEE  PAEKEE'S  EEEOES. 

THE     EIGHTIETH    LECTURE     IN     THE     BOSTON    MONDAY    LEC- 
TURESHIP, DELIVERED   IN   TREMONT   TEMPLE   MAY  28. 


"  IKCIDIS  in  Scyllam,  cupiens  vitare  Charybdim." 

PHILIPPE  GAULTIEB. 

"  IN  necessariis  unitas,  in  dubiis  libertas,  in  omnibus  caritas." 

MELANCTHON. 


XI. 


THE  SOURCES  OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S 
ERRORS. 

PKELTJDE  ON  CUEKENT  EVENTS. 

Go  back  to  the  time  when  Sir  Henry  Vane  was 
governor  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony,  in  1636,  and 
you  will  find  that  friend  of  John  Milton  advocating 
at  once  both  toleration  and  aggressiveness  in  religion. 
If  his  foresight  could  have  been  turned  into  fact,  or 
if  his  ideas  had  been  transmuted  into  custom,  we 
might  have  had  at  that  date  just  what  Berlin  saw 
not  long  ago,  on  the  grounds  where  Voltaire  and 
Frederick  the  Great  cried  out,  "  Ecrasez,  1'infame  !  " 
On  those  historical  terraces  of  San  Souci  an  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  came  together  from  the  Indus,  the 
Rhine,  the  Tiber,  the  Hudson,  and  the  Mississippi. 
So,  too,  we  saw  yonder,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson, 
in  1873,  a  similar  Alliance,  gathered  from  the  five 
zones,  and  filled  with  one  enthusiasm.  Who  knows 
but  that  soon  at  Geneva,  or  at  Rome,  a  like  gathering 
will  occur,  representing  the  ideas  of  religious  union 
and  activity  which  were  current  in  Boston,  so  far 
forth  as  its  governor  had  influence,  in  1636  ?  The 

317 


318  OETHODOXY. 

increasing  concentration  of  the  strength  of  the  reli- 
gious bodies  of  the  world  is  a  large,  fair  sign  of  hope 
for  civilization.  The  great  mass  of  evangelical  schol- 
arship and  life  is  an  unbroken  chain  extending  from 
the  Ural  Mountains  to  our  sunset  seas,  and  from  our 
Western  shores,  through  the  Pacific  Islands,  and 
many  a  gem  of  the  ocean  redeemed  to  Christianity, 
far  on  to  the  new  light  that  is  dawning  on  Japan  and 
China  and  India. 

When  I  was  on  the  great  pyramid,  I  looked  toward 
the  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  saw  many  square  brown 
fields  of  ripe  wheat,  many  square  green  fields  of 
growing  wheat,  many  square  black  fields  of  ploughed 
land,  many  square  white  fields  of  blossoming  pome- 
granates. But  all  the  fenceless  and  hedgeless  fields 
.were  a  part  of  Egypt;  the  division  between  them 
went  no  deeper  down  than  a  furrow;  underneath 
that,  this  rich  soil  was  a  unit.  And  so,  when  I  look 
across  the  world  from  any  commanding  height  of 
scholarship,  I  find  that  all  these  evangelical  sects 
differ  from  each  other  only  by  the  depth  of  a  furrow. 
They  are  one  Egypt,  only  different  squares.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Undoubtedly,  however,  there  is  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  green  fat  river-bottom  of  the  Nile  and  the 
rustling  sand  of  Sahara  that  lies  at  its  side.  It  is 
unsafe  to  overlook  that  distinction.  Between  belief 
and  unbelief,  between  that  style  of  thought  which 
does,  and  that  which  does  not,  assert  man's  need 
of  a  physician  not  human,  of  a  regeneration  not  aris- 
ing wholly  from  his  own  sweet  and  crooked  will, 


SOURCES   OF  THEODOBE  PARKER'S   ERRORS.   319 

there  must  be  a  distinction  made  in  philosophy,  and 
so  there  must  be  in  practice.  But  in  Egypt  I  found 
that  all  the  distinction  that  I  needed  to  notice  was 
that  between  the  bed  of  the  Nile  and  the  drifts  of 
Sahara.  I  will  not  say  where  Sahara  ends,  nor  where 
the  Nile  valley  begins.  It  is  often  a  puzzling  prob- 
lem to  draw  that  line  with  justice.  Now  and  then 
the  valley  encroaches  on  the  desert;  and  now  and 
then  the  desert  on  the  valley.  It  is  a  ragged  zigzag 
which  separates  green  Egypt  from  brown  Sahara, 
belief  from  unbelief.  Nevertheless,  you  do  not  doubt 
that  there  is  a  distinction  between  Sahara  and  the 
river-bottom.  [Applause.]  All  men  of  honesty  and 
candor  are  glad  to  have  that  distinction  pointed  out. 
He  whom  we  dare  not  name  undertakes  to  point  it 
out,  and  he  does  so  only  by  the  fruitlessness  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  fat  harvest  on  the  other.  [Applause.] 
Let  the  map  traced  by  his  finger  be  ours.  Lessing 
taught  that  the  most  useful  religion  will  ultimately 
be  considered  the  best. 

I  have  been  tracing  the  history  of  New  England, 
and  showing  how  many  causes  for  fifty,  an  hundred, 
or  two  hundred  years,  have  made  it  important  for  us 
to  insist  on  the  distinction  between  the  river-bottom 
and  the  desert,  and  to  draw  the  line  with  an  engi- 
neer's precision.  Is  there  not  a  danger,  that  our 
experience  in  this  protracted  period  has  fixed  our 
thoughts  too  closely  upon  mere  maps  of  Egypt ;  that 
is,  upon  merely  doctrinal,  rather  than  upon  practical 
Orthodoxy? 

It  does  not  plough  the  Nile  plain  to  map  the  line 


320  ORTHODOXY. 

never  so  accurately  between  it  and  Sahara.  Sand 
drifting  in  here,  and  the  green  running  out  there 
upon  the  sand  !  Who  will  make  Egypt  more  fruit- 
ful by  bending  forever  over  the  map,  and  finding 
just  where  the  sand  lies  to-day,  and  where  it  will 
not  lie  to-morrow;  and  where  the  green  has  con- 
quered the  sand  this  hour,  and  may,  in  the  next,  be 
covered  with  the  drifting  brown  powder  of  Sahara? 
You  know  that  there  is  this  distinction,  and  that  God 
will  take  care  of  it  by  putting  fruit  on  the  one  side, 
and  sand  on  the  other.  There  are  locusts  in  Egypt ; 
and  on  the  fat  lands  the  locusts  fall,  rather  than  on 
Sahara.  Your  fields  are  to  be  judged  by  their  fruits. 
They  are  one :  there  is  no  distinction  between  these 
fat  squares.  They  are  all  one  soil;  but  we  must 
adopt  Lessing's  test  as  to  our  merit, — fruitfulness,  and 
nothing  short  of  that.  We  are  to  attend  to  the 
locusts.  We  are  to  attend  to  the  smoking  furrows 
of  opportunity.  We  are  to  attend  to  the  great  tides 
of  inundation.  We  believe  in  evangelical  principles. 
We  believe  in  Orthodoxy.  But  religion  is  more  than 
a  map.  We  are  proud  of  the  record  of  scholarship 
in  the  last  fifty  years,  conquering  unbelief  in  Ger- 
many, and  having  to-day  more  than  a  promise  of  con- 
quering all  unbelief  around  the  whole  globe.  But 
we  must  plough,  sow,  and  reap  Egypt,  as  well  as  map 
it.  Our  test  must  be  Lessing's.  Ultimately,  as  he 
said  in  "  Nathan  the  Wise,"  all  religious  societies  and 
principles  will  be  judged  by  their  fruits.  By  and 
by,  if  the  world  can  tell  which  denomination  of  re- 
ligious believers  can  do  the  most,  if  it  can  ascertain 


SOUBCES   OF   THEODORE  PARKER'S   ERRORS.   321 

which  sets  of  ideas  match  best  the  deepest  instincts 
of  the  human  heart,  and  the  wants  of  life  and  death, 
the  world  will  know  what  to  believe.  [Applause.] 

Let  us  fasten  our  attention  on  the  inundations 
of  the  Nile  plain.  There  do  come  great  opportuni- 
ties. There  do  come  times  when  the  loss  of  oppor- 
tunity is  disloyalty  to  that  Providence  which  yet 
brings  forth  a  finger  on  the  wall,  and  yet  points  out 
the  way,  almost  miraculously  at  times,  to  our  poor 
human  sight.  The  rain  does  not  fall  every  day ;  the 
snow  does  not  descend  every  hour  in  the  winter. 
There  are  times  of  special  refreshing  from  the 
Almighty  Power,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for 
righteousness. 

Where  are  we,  my  friends,  that  we  think  of  remit- 
ting effort,  when  two  thousand  persons  came  forward 
lately  to  unite  with  the  churches  on  a  single  Sabbath 
in  this  city  and  its  vicinity  ?  Where  are  those  who 
have  lately  united  with  the  churches,  if  our  effort  is 
to  stop  ?  They  ought  not  to  have  entered  the  Church 
if  they  are  to  be  idle ;  and,  if  they  are  not  to  be  idle, 
this  movement  will  not  pause.  [Applause].  Thou- 
sands of  new  souls,  aflame  with  the  first  love  of  Him 
who  is  the  fulness  of  all  excellence,  are  coming  before 
our  communities;  and  they,  too,  will  be  judged  by 
Lessing's  rule.  They,  too,  will  be  dissected  by  the 
scalpel  and  the  microscope  of  their  fruitfulness.  If 
those  who  claim  to  have  entered  upon  a  new  life  are 
not  fruitful,  they  have  not  yet  found  the  new  life ; 
for  whatever  has  life  has  growth.  If  there  be  life 
and  growth  in  all  these  scions,  shall  we  not  have 


322  OETHODOXY. 

other  clusters  here  of  peace,  good-will  to  men,  ab- 
sence of  all  narrow  scepticism,  and  a  fulness  of  de- 
vout, thoughtful,  aggressive,  religious  activity  ?  Shall 
we  not  have  a  revival  in  business  following  a  revival 
in  religion? 

Milton  was  not  prodigal  of  his  praises ;  but,  of  a 
governor  of  Massachusetts,  he  wrote :  — 

"  Vane,  young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsels  old, 
Than  whom  a  better  senator  ne'er  held 
The  helm  of  Rome,  when  gowns,  not  arms,  repelled 
The  fierce  Epirot  and  the  African  bold, 
Both  spiritual  power  and  civil  thou  hast  learned  : 
Therefore  on  thy  firm  hand  Religion  leans 
In  peace,  and  reckons  thee  her  eldest  son." 

Sonnet  xvlL 

Charles  II.  is  a  great  power  in  history  yet.  There 
are  successors  of  him  in  many  a  circle  of  thought, 
and  in  many  a  drifting,  sleepy,  haughty  portion  of 
society.  Charles  II.  took  Harry  Vane  to  the  scaffold, 
and  chopped  off  his  head.  On  whose  side  are  we, 
—  that  of  Harry  Vane,  or  that  of  Charles  II.  ?  I  am 
looking  on  the  whole  trend  of  the  current  of  our  his- 
tory since  Henry  Vane  was  here,  and  on  the  trend  of 
English  history,  and  on  the  trend  of  scholarship 
throughout  the  world.  We  know  what  brilliant  let- 
ters there  were  to  uphold  Charles  II.  We  know  how 
Cromwell,  when  he  dissolved  the  Long  Parliament, 
said, "  God  preserve  me  from  Sir  Harry  Vane."  "  Why 
should  we  fear  death  ?  "  asked  Vane,  the  day  before 
his  execution.  "  I  find  it  rather  shrinks  from  me 
than  I  from  it."  "  The  Lord  will  be  a  better  father 


SOURCES   OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S   ERRORS.    323 

to  you,"  he  said  to  his  children,  as  he  stooped  to 
embrace  them.  "Be  not  you  troubled;  for  I  am 
going  home  to  my  Father.  Suffer  any  thing  from 
men,  rather  than  sin  against  God.  Ten  thousand 
deaths,  rather  than  defile  the  chastity  of  conscience ! " 
From  the  windows  and  tops  of  houses,  the  people 
poured  out  prayers  and  sobs  for  him  as  he  passed  by 
to  the  scaffold ;  and  they  shouted  aloud,  "  God  go 
with  you ! "  "  Blessed  be  God,"  he  exclaimed  as  he 
bared  his  neck  for  the  axe,  "  I  have  kept  a  conscience 
void  of  offence  to  this  day,  and  have  not  deserted 
the  righteous  cause  for  which  I  suffer !  "  That  cause 
was  civil  and  religious  liberty.  It  has  immeasurable 
interests  yet  at  stake  in  the  world.  Let  us  take  up 
the  great  enterprise  of  our  fathers,  which  is  now  the 
hope  of  the  whole  planet,  —  the  story  of  religion  trans- 
muted into  politics,  and  not  only  that,  but  into  litera- 
ture and  science.  America  is  but  half  republican  until 
she  Christianizes  not  only  politics  and  the  schools, 
but  literature  and  trade,  greed  and  fraud,  and  even 
those  twin  Saharas,  — an  unscientific  Liberalism  and  a 
dead  Orthodoxy.  [Applause.]  America  will  not 
meet  the  wishes  of  its  early  martyrs  until  it  is 
brought  so  close  to  God's  bosom,  that  the  beating  of 
his  pulses  may  be  the  marching  song  of  all  our  ages. 
[Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

There  are  great  changes  occurring  in  New  England 
in  the  direction  of  increased  individualism  in  the 
sentiments  of  men  of  moderate  education.  But  the 


324  ORTHODOXY. 

mass  of  New-Englanders  are  persons  of  moderate 
education.  The  healthful  audacity  of  democracy  in 
giving  every  man  a  right  to  act  wholly  for  himself 
in  politics  induces  the  feeling  that  one  man  is  as 
good  as  another  at  the  bar  of  philosophy,  as  well  as 
before  the  courts.  We  are  all  equal  in  the  high 
matters  decided  by  suffrage :  why  should  not  all  be 
equal  in  the  high  matters  decided  by  scholarship? 
Man's  rights  are  inalienable,  are  they  not  ?  And  do 
not  his  rights  extend  to  his  intellectual  as  well  as  to 
his  political  interests?  A  gulf-current  of  democracy 
and  individualism  is  beneath  these  latest  ages  ; .  and 
it  is  from  its  tepid  breast  that  many  of  the  vapors 
arise  which  temporarily  obscure  the  popular  philoso- 
phic and  religious  sky. 

A  very  subtly  correct  picture  of  America,  and,  in 
some  sense,  of  the  middle  classes  of  the  England  and 
Scotland  of  to-day,  Alexis  de  Tocqueville  drew  in 
these  incisive  sentences :  — 

"Individualism  is  of  democratic  origin,  and  threatens  to 
spread  in  the  same  ratio  as  equality  of  condition.  Aristocracy 
makes  a  chain  of  all  the  members  of  the  community,  from  the 
peasant  to  the  king:  democracy  breaks  that  chain,  and  severs 
every  link  of  it.  As  social  conditions  become  more  equal,  the 
number  of  persons  increases,  who,  although  they  are  neither 
rich  nor  powerful  enough  to  exercise  any  great  influence  over 
thek  fellows,  have,  nevertheless,  acquired  or  retained  sufficient 
education  and  fortune  to  satisfy  their  own  wants.  They  owe 
nothing  to  any  man ;  they  expect  nothing  from  any  man ;  they 
acquire  the  habit  of  considering  themselves  as  standing  alone. 
Democracy  makes  every  man  forget  his  ancestors,  hides  his  de- 
scendants, and  separates  his  contemporaries  from  him:  it  throws 
him  back  forever  upon  himself.  Individualism  is  a  feeling 


SOURCES   OF   THEODOEE   PARKER'S   ERRORS.    325. 

which  disposes  each  member  of  the  community  to  sever  himself 
from  the  mass  of  his  fellows,  and  to  draw  apart  with  his  family 
and  his  friends ;  so  that,  after  he  has  thus  formed  a  little  circle 
of  his  own,  he  willingly  leaves  society  at  large  to  itself."  (DE 
TOCQUEVTLLE,  Democracy  in  America,  vol.  ii.  book  ii.  chap.  2.) 

We  have  in  New  England  the  most  intense  de- 
mocracy on  the  globe;  and,  even  in  our  highly 
cultured  circles,  a  tendency  exists  to  an  exaggerated 
and  unscientific  individualism.  Our  Emerson  him- 
self is  not  so  much  pantheistic  as  he  is  individ- 
ualistic, uttering,  now  excellent  Christian  truth, 
and  now  matter  of  a  pantheistic  look.  Everywhere 
he  is  true  to  individualism,  not  everywhere  to  pan- 
theism. This  tendency  of  democracy  will  not  be 
a  permanent  one  ;  but  it  will  appear  more  and  more 
in  the  democratic  ages,  and  in  the  popular  quarters  of 
our  civilization  —  until  when  ?  Until  the  day  when 
popular  education  shall  have  been  elevated  high 
enough  to  know  that  man's  intellectual  rights,  while 
belonging  to  all  individuals,  are,  perhaps,  best  defend- 
ed by  a  few  who  have  time  to  attend  to  the  strategy 
of  fortification.  In  England  the  political  rights  of  the 
many  have  been  best  defended  by  the  few.  But 
America  has  learned,  that,  on  the  whole,  it  is  best  to 
let  all  men  defend  their  own  political  rights.  Never- 
theless, even  here,  a  few  have  done  the  most  in  that 
field.  We  must  finally  come,  in  the  intellectual  range 
of  our  lives,  to  the  same  rule  that  we  adopt  in  the 
political  field  and  in  the  practical  arts;  all  men 
shall  be  free  to  discuss ;  all  men  shall  be  free  to 
decide ;  but  as,  in  the  political  field  and  in  the  prac- 


,  326  ORTHODOXY. 

tical  arts,  we  do  pay  attention  to  the  few  who  can 
examine  matters  thoroughly,  and  have  had  long  ex- 
perience, so  in  the  intellectual  field  we  will  pay  atten- 
tion to  a  few,  after  deciding  that  they  are  leaders 
worthy  of  the  name.  [Applause.] 

Lift  the  standard  of  the  mass  of  men  high  enough  to 
cause  them  to  choose  the  right  kind  of  leadership  in 
things  intellectual  and  moral,  as  they  HOW  often  do  in 
things  political  and  mechanical,  and  I  will  show  you  a 
public  sentiment  which  will  be  a  Vesuvian  lava-front, 
to  tear  away  and  to  burn  up,  once  and  forever,  all  that 
is  evil  in  our  civilization.  [Applause.]  We  must 
elevate  public  opinion  until  the  masses  of  men  are 
ripe  enough  to  discern  and  follow  merit.  You  say  I 
am  making  a  plea  for  some  party.  I  am  making  a 
plea  only  for  scholarship.  I  am  making  a  plea  only 
against  religious  quacks.  I  am  making  a  plea  only 
against  haughty  sciolism.  A  little  knowledge  is  a 
dangerous  thing ;  and  our  heads  are  in  newspapers 
and  ledgers.  The  better*specimens  of  our  omnipres- 
ent newspapers  are  not  as  well  patronized  as  the 
poorer.  This  will  not  always  be  so.  When  we  shall 
have  learned  the  difference  between  the  better  and 
the  best,  and  refuse  to  be  guided  by  third-rate 
authorities  in  the  press,  on  the  platform,  or  even  in 
the  pulpit,  we  may  lift  public  sentiment  at  last  to 
an  overawing  power  which  will  give  America  her 
right  position,  and  justify  her  democracy ;  and,  until 
-we  do  lift  popular  opinion  thus  high  by  popular  edu- 
cation, we  shall  never  justify  ourselves  before  the  bar 
of  the  nations,  nor  before  the  providence  of  Almighty 
God.  [Applause.] 


SOURCES   OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S   ERRORS.    327 

Theodore  Parker  appeared  in  New  England  at  a 
time  when  we  were  all  in  the  sophomore  year.  Large 
parts  of  New  England  are  in  their  sophomore  year 
and  do  not  know  the  fact.  Much  of  the  rest  of 
the  country  has  not  yet  come  to  college.  [Applause.] 
There  never  was  on  the  globe  as  large  a  community 
of  men  as  now  exists  in  New  England,  all  thinking 
for  themselves,  and  pushed  to  a  height  of  haughty 
sciolism  by  the  law  of  individualism  inhering  in 
democracy.  The  sophomoric  disease  is  mental  un- 
rest mingled  with  omniscience.  We  have  not  be- 
gun to  learn  the  evils  of  such  a  state  of  things.  We 
hardly  know  that  it  exists.  If  I  were  not  a  flying- 
scout  and  outlook  committee  —  this  is  all  I  am  — 
for  my  learned  brethren  here,  going  up  and  down, 
and  conversing  with  some  wise  men,  I  doubt  whether 
I  should  feel,  as  I  now  do,  that  what  threatens  us, 
perhaps,  more  than  any  thing  else,  is  precisely  what 
De  Tocqueville  pointed  out  in  this  pervasive  individ- 
ualism. Under  democracy  men  think  as  they  please. 
We  may  go  to  church  or  not ;  and,  if  we  choose,  we 
may  found  a  church.  Every  man  can  stand  alone, 
and  so  may,  within  certain  very  general  bounds,  walk 
as  he  will.  Small  circles  of  individualists  know  little 
of  each  other,  and  they  need  know  little.  Almost 
their  only  communication  with  each  other's  ideas  and 
sympathies,  it  may  be,  is  through  poor  newspapers, 
published  weekly,  and  very  weakly  it  oftentimes  is. 
Thus  we  find  more  and  more  individualism  growing 
up ;  for  it  is  yet  the  law,  that  to  him  that  hath  of 
American  individualism  shall  be  given  more  and 
more  abundantly. 


328  ORTHODOXY. 

This  mood  of  the  sophomore  year  dawned  on  New 
England  at  about  the  time  when  that  great  wave  of 
secularization,  beginning  in  1631,  and  on  the  first 
ripples  of  which  Harry  Vane  looked  with  no  little 
concern,  had  risen  to  its  haughty,  turbulent  height. 
About  that  same  time,  too,  there  struck  us  another 
wave,  narrow,  and  now  largely  decadent,  —  the  ration- 
alism of  Germany.  The  two  seething  seas,  in  collis- 
ion, shot  aloft  above  this  reef  of  New  England  indi- 
vidualism. The  reef  is  there,  although  the  two  waves 
have  gone  down.  There  will  be  more  foam  over  that 
reef  yet. 

How  did  Theodore  Parker  fall  into  his  errors  of 
speculation? 

1.  He  was  in  his   course   of  education  at  a  time 
when  a  now  outgrown  and  discredited  school  of  ra- 
tionalism—  that  of  DeWette,  Strauss,  and  Baur  — 
was  possessed  of  great  power  in  Germany. 

2.  His  real  teachers  were  DeWette,  whom  he  trans- 
lated, and  Baur,  whom  he  echoed. 

3.  His   place  of  education  was  among  Unitarians, 
themselves   much   divided  by   the   results   of  their 
characteristic  negations. 

4.  The  system   of  thought  which   afterwards  be- 
came his  absolute  religion,  he  formed  while  he  was 
yet  in  the  Divinity  School,  and  insufficiently  equipped 
for  independent  metaphysical  speculation. 

5.  When  he  was  yet  a  young  man  his  theologi- 
cal opinions  were  vehemently  attacked  publicly :  he 
was  forced  to  defend  them  vehemently ;  and  thus  his 
early  crudities  became  his  creed. 


SOURCES   OF  THEODORE   PARKER'S   ERRORS.   329 

6.  Absorbed  in  political  and  social  discussions  after 
his   advent  to  Boston,  his   distinctively  theological 
and  metaphysical  scholarship  was  comparatively  little 
advanced  after  that  period. 

7.  His    nature   was   impetuously  independent  by 
birth,  and  became  more  so  by  the  struggles  of  his 
public  life. 

8.  He  was  deficient  in  the  insight  of  reverence. 

9.  He  was  deficient  in  aesthetic  perception. 

10.  Sympathy   came   to   him    in    his    antislavery 
efforts  only  too  slowly  from  the  supporters  of  estab- 
lished creeds. 

11.  He  rarely  came  into  contact  with  the  best  rep- 
resentatives of  Orthodox  scholarship. 

12.  In  a  hundred  points  he   misapprehended  the 
nature   of  Orthodox    teaching.      He    did   not   ade- 
quately distinguish  from  each  other  the  supernatural 
and  the  unnatural,  inspiration  and  illumination,  in- 
spiration and  dictation,  chastisement  and  punishment, 
total  depravity  and  total  corruption,  disarrangedness 
of  soul  and  unarrangeability,  certainty  and  necessity, 
belief  and  faith. 

13.  His  philosophical   system  was  so  loose,  that 
he  admitted  into  the  list  of  self-evident    truths   or 
intuitions  the  Divine  Existence  and  the  fact  of  im- 
mortality, and  made  no  distinction  between  intuition 
and  instinct. 

14.  He  died  while  his  philosophical  and  theological 
systems  were,  by  his  own  confession,  crude,  fragmen- 
tary, and  provisional. 

15.  His  scheme  of  thought  underrates  the  signifi- 


330  OKTHODOXY. 

cance  of  the  fact  of  sin  to  such  a  degree  as  to  deny 
several  of  the  intuitions  of  conscience,  and  so  by  not 
attending  to  the  whole  list  of  self-evident  truths,  but 
only  to  a  part  of  them,  violates  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  scientific  method. 

When  Theodore  Parker  was  in  the  Divinity  School 
at  Cambridge,  he  one  day  made  reference  to  "  Old 
Paul." — "  Why,"  said  Henry  Ware,  one  of  the  noblest 
and  acutest  men  who  ever  taught  in  that  institution, 
"you  must  be  more  reverent."  —  "  Well,"  said  Park- 
er, "hereafter  I  will  refer  to  the  gentleman  from 
Tarsus."  All  through  his  life,  this  capacity 'to  be 
rough  and  ready  was  with  him,  and  was  a  great 
popular  power  at  times ;  and  yet  it  indicated  a  cer- 
tain lack  of  insight ;  and  that  deficiency  his  different 
biographers  recognize. 

There  was  in  him  a  noble  perception  of  the  glory 
of  every  thing  that  had  conscience  behind  it.  Theo- 
dore Parker  seems  to  me  to  have  had  in  his  nature  a 
majestic  chord  out  of  the  old  Pilgrim  harp.  The  iron 
strand  of  the  Puritan  lyre  which  Milton  and  Crom- 
well, and  Hampden  and  Vane,  first  struck,  lifted  up 
its  stern,  inspired  sound  in  our  civil  war  in  the  John 
Brown  Marching  Song.  That  Presbyterian  captain ! 
Parker  wrote  about  him  from  Rome,  that  he  would 
die  "  like  a  saint,"  and  that  "  from  Stephen  who  was 
stoned  at  Jerusalem,  to  Mary  Dyer  who  was  hung 
on  the  great  tree  on  Boston  Common,  there  have 
been  few  spirits  more  pure  or  devoted  than  this  mar- 
tyr "  (WEiss,  vol.  ii.  p.  178).  The  thrum  of  that 
chord  we  heard  side  by  side  with  the  John  Brown 


SOUECES   OP  THEODOEE  PAEKEE'S  EEEOES.    331 

marching  choral,  and  we  found  no  dissonance  in  the 
tones.  That  one  note  in  him  we  glorify,  and  desire 
to  have  it  heard  long  and  far.  While  the  Presby- 
terian captain  stands  there  in  history  on  the  Virginia 
scaffold  against  the  winter  sky,  let  Theodore  Parker's 
approval  of  him,  and  copartnership  with  him,  be 
remembered.  [Applause.] 

But  this  man  lacked  the  deeper  insights  of  sesthet- 
ic  perception,  perhaps,  as  much  as  any  one  who  has 
ever  written  as  copiously  as  he  in  Boston.  This 
lack,  too,  is  recognized  well  by  his  biographers ;  but 
it  is  only  Mr.  Frothingham  who  has  been  candid 
enough  to  admit  that  it  unfitted  him,  in  some  par- 
ticulars, for  biblical  criticism.  When  Theodore  Par- 
ker was  in  Rome  in  1859,  he  wrote,  "  I  take  more 
interest  in  a  cattle-show  than  in  a  picture-show." 
He  then  goes  on  to  say,  "  I  love  beauty."  But  he 
had  no  sympathy  with  those  who  lamented  the  ab- 
sence of  art  in  America.  "  There  is  not  a  saw-mill 
in  Rome."  -  That  was  his  principal  trouble  with  the 
Eternal  City.  He  did  not  care  to  read  a  second  time 
the  best  poem  ever  written  by  Mrs.  Browning, 
Shakspeare's  daughter.  Now,  in  some  passages  of 
the  Scriptures,  he  found  neither  a  cattle-show  nor  a 
saw-mill ;  and  Mr.  Frothingham  says,  "  This  absence 
from  his  mind  of  the  one  artistic  quality  accounts  for 
the  something  like  crudeness  that  mars  occasionally 
his  treatment  of  the  poetical  side  of  ancient  religions 
[Christianity  among  them,  of  course],  their  creeds 
and  their  documents.  And  this  even  helps  to  explain 
certain  inaccuracies  which  sprang  from  a  defect  in 


332  ORTHODOXY. 

aesthetic  perception  oftener  than  from  infidelity  to 
literal  facts"  (FEOTHINGHAM,  Life  of  Parker,  pp. 
576-578).  Dr.  Bartol,  whose  literary  perceptions  are 
certainly  very  sensitive,  and  often  singularly  revela- 
tory of  truth,  wrote  years  ago  of  Theodore  Parker, 
"  Right  or  wrong,  I  could  not  recognize  in  him  ge- 
nius poetic  "  (FBOTHINGHAM,  Life  of  Parker,  p.  579). 
Mr.  Emerson  stood  up  at  the  commemorative  services 
held  for  Theodore  Parker,  and  said,  "  We  can  hardly 
ascribe  to  his  mind  the  poetic  element.  I  found  some 
harshness  in  his  treatment  both  of  Greek  and  Hebrew 
antiquity,  and  sympathized  with  the  pain  of  many 
good  people  in  his  auditory,  whilst  I  acquitted  him, 
of  course,  of  any  wish  to  be  flippant "  (Ibid.,  p.  549). 
In  Parker  you  meet  sinewy  English  often,  and  phrases 
that  are  like  drum-beats;  but  very  frequently  the 
ruggedness  and  haste  degenerate  into  roughness  and 
uncouthness.  You  can  rarely  read  ten  pages  of  his 
writings  consecutively,  without  feeling  that  there  is 
a  lack  of  grace ;  that  smoothness  is  absent ;  and  that, 
on  the  whole,  Lowell  was  right  when  he  said  about 
this  man,  that  he  had  — 

"  Sophroniscus's  son's  head  o'er  the  features  of  Rabelais." 

Fable  for  Critics. 

Even  in  Theodore  Parker's  best  analytical  pas- 
sages, there  is  often  something  of  that  combination, 
—  forceful  thought,  but  badly  angular  expression. 
On  the  topic  of  slavery  we  find  rough,  harsh  words, 
which  appear  to  be,  at  times,  the  result  of  the  lack  of 
aesthetic  perception,  rather  than  of  moral.  What 


SOURCES   OP  THEODORE  PARKER'S   ERRORS.    333 

fearful  doctrine  this  is,  for  instance !  —  "A  man  held 
against  his  will  as  a  slave  has  a  natural  right  to  kill 
every  one  who  seeks  to  prevent  his  enjoyment  of  lib- 
erty. It  is  the  natural  duty  of  the  slave  to  develop 
this  natural  right  in  a  practical  manner,  and  actually 
kill  all  who  seek  to  prevent  his  enjoyment  of  liberty. 
The  freeman  has  a  natural  right  to  help  the  slaves 
recover  that  liberty,  and,  in  that  enterprise,  to  do  for 
them  all  that  they  have  a  right  to  do  for  themselves  " 
("  Letter  from  Rome,"  Nov.  24,  1859.  WEISS,  Life, 
vol.  ii.  p.  170).  He  was  a  stern  iconoclast  indeed; 
and  sometimes  in  his  propositions,  when  great  prin- 
ciples were  to  be  brought  into  the  foreground  in  the 
analytical  method,  he  cut  such  a  rough  wound,  that 
it  is  hardly  wonderful  that  his  sword  was  hacked  by 
opposition  from  his  own  camp,  although  drawn  in  a 
righteous  cause.  When  he  attacks  Orthodoxy,  his 
weakness  is  in  his  extravagance.  Here  he  finds  God 
eminently  malignant.  His  standard  accusations  can- 
not be  read  over  a  tombstone  of  any  believer,  without 
seeming  weak  and  wicked.  In  his  best  book,  that  on 
"  Theism,"  he  is  so  full  of  this  irritated,  fretted  mood, 
that  the  only  reply  needed  to  his  thinking  is  to  point 
out  the  fact  that  it  is  not  thinking,  but  fretting.  On 
account  of  his  lack  of  aesthetic  perception,  he  hardly 
knew  how  ungraceful  all  fretting  is  in  a  philosopher. 
Nevertheless,  on  several  sides  of  his  nature,  this  icono- 
clast was  a  copy  of  his  gentle  mother ;  but  the  father 
in  him  predominated. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  Theodore 
Parker's  chief  difficulty,   after  all,   came  from  his 


334  OETHODOXY. 

being  brought  into  New  England  at  a  time  when  a 
culminating,  secularized  historic  wave  seized  him, 
with  all  his  native  independence,  and  of  course  lifted 
him  to  the  height  of  the  negations  which  then  were 
popular.  What  was  happening  in  Boston  when  Theo- 
dore Parker  was  in  Cambridge  as  a  student  ?  Who 
were  the  great  men  in  public  life  here  ?  What  had 
just  come  to  pass  in  New  England  ?  Why,  in  1834, 
we  had  the  haughty  mood  of  a  local  movement  which 
regarded  itself  as  embracing  the  world,  because  it 
embraced  Beacon  Hill  and  Bunker  Hill.  I  beg 
everybody's  pardon ;  but  it  is  simply  historic  accu- 
racy, to  notice  that  some  victories  have  ceased  to 
be  victories,  for  any  large  extent  of  territory  out  of 
sight  of  the  dome  of  the  State  House.  Neverthe- 
less, that  dome  was  the  centre  of  much,  and  more 
than  much,  and  in  Parker's  tune  was  recognized  as 
such.  It  had  just  been  crowned  as  the  centre  of  New 
England  culture ;  and  the  drift  of  Unitarianism  and 
Universalism  was  against  not  a  little  that  deserved  to 
be  criticised  in  popular  Orthodoxy,  although  against 
very  little  in  scholarly  discussions. 

Scholarly  Orthodoxy  has  not  changed  greatly  in 
the  last  fifty  years.  Partisan  critics  perhaps,  think 
that  I  am  not  candid  concerning  Orthodoxy,  simply 
because  they  forget  the  distinction  between  popular 
and  scholarly  Orthodoxy.  I  am  not  here  to  defend 
all  the  loose  phrases  that  have  been  used  in  the  pul- 
pits of  Eastern  Massachusetts  in  the  last  hundred 
years.  It  is  no  part  of  my  policy  to  stand  up  here 
for  any  thing  that  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  por- 


SOURCES  OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S  ERRORS.    335 

tion  of  scholarly  New  England  theology.  The  ques- 
tion whether  I  defend  historical  Orthodoxy,  or  ac- 
credited Orthodoxy,  is  a  very  minor  matter  compared 
with  the  inquiry  whether  I  defend  truth.  What  do  I 
care  what  historical  Orthodoxy  is,  or  what  accredited 
Orthodoxy  is  ?  We  desire  to  know  what  the  truth 
is.  [Applause.]  The  latter  question  is  here  always 
put  in  the  foreground.  [Applause.]  But  I  defy 
most  indignantly,  in  the  name  of  these  scholars,  who 
have  by  their  presence  done  more  a  thousand  times 
to  carry  any  thought  uttered  here  out  on  the  wings 
of  print  than  any  thing  I  have  done,  —  I  defy  indig- 
nantly all  who  would  assert  that  I  am  not  in  har- 
mony with  accredited  Orthodoxy  in  New  England. 
An  authority,  than  which  there  is  no  higher  in  this 
city  in  my  denomination,  has  lately  published  these 
words  :  "  The  Congregationalists  have  seven  semina- 
ries in  this  country.  When  Mr.  Cook  is  charged 
with  deranging  Orthodoxy,  if  it  is  meant  that  his 
teachings  are  essentially  different  from  those  of  the 
Congregational  theological  seminaries  of  the  land, 
the  charge  only  shows  the  ignorance  of  the  one  who 
makes  it "  (CusHESTG,  Rev.  Dr.  C.  of  Boston,  editor 
of  "  Congregational  Quarterly,"  Letter  in  "  Boston 
Globe,"  May  16). 

Where  is  there  a  man  that  can  show  dissonance  on 
any  point  of  importance  between  what  has  been 
taught  here  and  what  is  to-day  called  accredited 
Orthodoxy,  and  was  implicitly  if  not  explicitly  ac- 
credited Orthodoxy,  fifty,  eighty,  or  a  hundred  years 
ago?  Various  changes  of  phraseology  have  been 


336  ORTHODOXY. 

made ;  but  remember,  if  you  will,  that  in  religious 
science,  as  in  every  other,  we  need  a  new  vocabulary 
every  hundred  years.  Distinguish  vocabularies  from 
ideas,  and  you  will  find  that  the  rock  on  which  New 
England  has  stood  since  Henry  Vane's  time  crops 
out  yet,  here  in  Boston ;  and  that  the  emphases  of 
scholarship  are  given  now  to  substantially  the  same 
eternal  truths  which  brought  our  fathers  to  this  iron 
shore.  [Applause.] 

Besides  the  billows  beating  on  us  in  their  long  roll 
from  1631,  political  influences  were  disaffecting  some 
with  Orthodoxy  in  1834.  Channing  and  Garrison 
were  leading  thought  here  on  antislavery  topics 
when  Theodore  Parker  was  yonder  in  Cambridge  as  a 
student,  sensitively  absorbing  such  influences  as  his 
day  could  send  him.  Horace  Mann  was  just  begin- 
ning his  great  work  for  the  education  of  the  people. 
Pierpont,  single  handed,  was  fighting  the  battle 
against  intemperance  in  the  street  and  for  righteous- 
ness in  the  pulpit.  "  The  brilliant  genius  of  Emer- 
son, rising  in  the  winter  nights,"  as  Parker  himself 
says,  "  hung  over  Boston,  drawing  the  eyes  of  ingen- 
uous youth  and  the  masses  of  the  people  to  look  up 
to  that  great  new  star,  a  beauty  and  a  mystery,  which 
charmed  for  the  moment,  while  it  gave  also  perennial 
inspiration  as  it  led  them  forward  along  new  paths 
and  toward  new  hopes  "  (WEISS,  Life  of  Parker,  vol. 
ii.  pp.  458,  459).  Spurzheim  in  1832,  and  Combe  in 
1838,  gave  lectures  here ;  and  we  had  phrenology  on 
the  brain.  Brook  Farms  were  in  the  air  —  and  al- 
most nowhere  else !  The  writings  of  Wordsworth 


SOURCES  OF  THEODOEE  PAEKER's   EEEOES.    337 

and  Carlyle  and  Coleridge  and  Cousin  were  new. 
The  German  language  began  to  be  learned  in  Boston. 
In  1835  what  was  happening  in  Germany  ?  Strauss 
had  just  risen  above  the  horizon,  —  a  star  that  shook 
down  terror  on  many  scholarly  circles,  but  which  we 
have  seen  at  last  obscured  before  its  setting.  The 
last,  and  the  most  important  work  of  Strauss  (see 
Bibliotheca  Sacra,  1874),  was  disowned  by  average 
German  radicalism,  as  full  of  positions  that  cannot  be 
defended.  Did  Theodore  Parker  lean  on  Strauss? 
Yes  and  no.  He  criticised  Strauss.  There  were  many 
things  in  that  writer  which  Parker  himself  could  not 
adopt  when  he  began  his  career.  But  open  here 
Parker's  last  account  of  himself;  and  he  says, 
"Young  Mr.  Strauss,  in  whom  genius  for  criticism 
was  united  with  extraordinary  learning,  and  rare 
facility  of  philosophic  speech,  wrote  his  '  Life  of 
Jesus,'  where  he  rigidly  scrutinized  the  genuineness 
of  the  Gospels  and  the  authenticity  of  their  contents, 
and  with  scientific  calmness  brought  every  statement 
to  his  steady  scales,  weighing  it,  not  always  justly,  as 
I  think,  but  impartially  always,  with  philosophical 
coolness  and  deliberation  "  (WEiss,  Life,  vol.  ii.  p. 
459).  Strauss  taught  Parker  to  undervalue  the  his- 
torical evidences  of  Christianity,  and  delivered  him 
to  the  now  discredited  school  of  DeWette  and  Baur, 
of  whom  he  was  a  follower,  even  after  Germany 
ceased  to  give  them  any  commanding  following. 
Every  scholar  knows,  that,  "  as  a  sect  in  biblical  criti- 
cism, the  Tubingen  school  has  perished,  and  that  its 
history  has  been  written  in  more  than  one  tongue  " 


338  ORTHODOXY. 

(THAYER,  PROFESSOR  J.  HENKY,  Criticism  confir- 
matory of  the  Grospels,  Boston  Lectures,  pp.  363,  364, 
371).  But,  from  about  1835  to  1845,  that  school  had 
great  influence ;  and  Theodore  Parker  mistook  it  for 
the  Gulf  Current  of  scholarship,  and  committed  him- 
self to  it  most  enthusiastically  and  most  unfortunately. 
The  sadly  tortured  and  divided  fatherland  —  Ger- 
many is  our  fatherland,  as  England  is  our  mother- 
land —  had  been  under  the  heel  of  Napoleonic  wars. 
Scratch  the  Old  World  in  the  centre  of  Europe  once, 
and  you  find  the  wars  of  the  first  Napoleon ;  twice, 
and  you  find  the  Thirty-years'  war ;  thrice,  and  you 
find  the  middle  ages.  Napoleon  said,  "  Scratch  a 
Russian,  and  you  find  beneath  the  surface  a  Tartar." 
Scratch  Central  Germany  in  its  peasant-life  three 
times,  and  you  come  upon  the  age  that  preceded 
Charlemagne.  Although  writing  for  a  sceptical  sheet 
("The  Commonwealth,"  May  26),  an  observer  dis- 
stinctly  affirmed  in  Leipzig,  lately,  that  "  rationalism 
makes  far  less  show  "  — that  was  the  phrase  —  now  in 
the  universities  than  it  did  fifty  or  eighty  years  ago. 
That  is  what  Dorner  will  tell  you,  and  Tholuck  and 
Kahnis,  and  Schwarz  and  Christlieb,  and  all  the 
scholars  on  both  sides  in  Germany.  Little  by  little 
Germany  has  been  shaking  off  Parisian  influences. 
Rationalism  speaks  to  painfully  empty  benches  in  the 
universities,  while  evangelical  lecture-rooms  at  Leip- 
zig, Halle,  and  Berlin,  are  comparatively  crowded. 
Nevertheless,  what  I  affirm  now  is  what  I  have 
affirmed  everywhere  (see  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  October, 
1875,  p.  766),  —  that  many  of  the  less  religiously 


SOURCES   OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S   ERRORS.    339 

and  intellectually  cultivated  parts  of  the  German 
population,  feel  yet  the  inherited  influence  of  the 
rationalism  outgrown  by  German  specialists  in  reli- 
gious science.  The  average  German  yonder  on  the 
Elbe  or  Oder  when  he  leaves  his  fatherland  is  what 
he  is  when  he  lands  here.  The  decline  of  rational- 
ism, however,  among  theological  experts  in  Germany, 
is  a  fact  as  significant  as  it  is  indisputable.  You  will 
be  told  triumphantly  that  the  number  of  theological 
students  is  less  now  in  Germany  than  it  was  fifty  or 
eighty  years  ago.  That  is  true.  Is  this  a  good  sign, 
or  a  bad  one  ?  You  may  easily  be  confused  on  this 
point,  unless  you  cast  a  sharp  glance  on  Germany. 
What  is  Germany  doing  at  this  moment  ?  She  is 
swinging  away  from  the  State  Church  to  the  volun- 
tary system  in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  What  is  the  result 
of  that  ?  Why,  Germany  has  no  abundance  of  material 
fit  to  make  deacons  of  now ;  and  Luther  said,  in  lan- 
guage which  I  have  lying  before  me,  that  there  was 
no  material  in  Germany  fit  to  make  deacons  of  in  his 
day.  Why  was  there  not  ?  Because  Germany  had 
no  voluntary  church  system,  and  had  never  educated 
the  mass  of  her  citizens  to  activity  in  church  affairs. 
She  is  doing  this  slowly  now.  But  superb  supporters 
of  churches  are  not  made  in  an  hour.  Deacons  are 
poor  institutions,  you  say ;  but  the  ability  to  produce 
good  deacons  is  a  high  test  of  civilization.  By  the 
way,  some  say  that  I  was  brought  up  a  narrow  Baptist, 
because  my  father  —  whom  God  bless!  —  is  a  Baptist 
and  open  communionist.  He  united  with  the  church 
when  he  was  forty  years  of  age,  and  I  when  I  was 


340  ORTHODOXY. 

fourteen.  Who  put  on  the  shell  ?  If  you  please,  I 
was  brought  up,  if  any  thing,  a  Universalist,  but  of 
the  serious  type,  I  hope.  Some  good  seed,  I  trust, 
was  sown ;  and,  if  any  good  fruit  has  been  produced, 
it  has  been  the  result  of  the  fact  that  I  was  let  alone, 
and  came  into  my  present  position  by  the  natural 
law  of  development  and  of  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test. [Applause.] 

Of  course  the  stagnant  marshes  of  German  State 
Church  life  will  not  be  drained  in  a  day.  The  num- 
ber of  theological  students  has  temporarily  dimin- 
ished; but  the  number  of  evangelical  students  of 
theology  in  Germany  has  relatively  increased.  Little 
by  little,  men  who  teach-  religious  truth  are  being 
put  under  the  conditions  of  a  voluntary  system,  and 
obliged  to  obtain  their  support  largely  from  the  peo- 
ple. But  even  with  rationalism  among  the  peasants, 
even  with  rationalism  in  the  middle  class,  the  average 
rule  is,  that  the  ministers  who  are  best  paid  in  Ger- 
many are  those  who  preach  an  undiluted  Christian- 
ity. The  churches  are  changing  from  the  State 
Church  system  to  a  more  free  system.  They  are  not 
accustomed  to  collect  funds.  They  know  almost 
nothing,  by  experience,  of  our  voluntary  plan.  For  a 
while,  ministers  of  the  poorer  classes  will  starve  in 
Germany ;  and  you  must  not  be  surprised  if  the 
number  of  students  in  theology  diminishes.  That  is 
no  proof  that  Germany  is  going  over  to  scepticism. 
It  is  important  to  notice  that  Germany  is  in  a  period 
of  transition  in  church  affairs,  and,  of  course,  must 
walk  staggeringly  or  weakly  for  a  while,  until  she 


SOUECES   OF  THEODORE  PAEKER's  EEEOES.    341 

walks  erect  in  the  voluntary  system.  Ministers  may 
be  fewer  for  a  time,  because  some  of  them  may  more 
easily  than  under  the  State  Church  become  poor. 

But  this  state  of  things  is  not  likely  to  be  perma- 
nent. Heidelberg  is  the  only  decidedly  rationalistic 
university  among  the  twenty  renowned  universities 
of  Germany.  It  has  almost  no  theological  students. 
Scholarship  in  support  of  rationalism  is  not  easily 
found  in  the  theological  faculties.  Germany  follows 
her  universities  much  more  closely  than  we  do  ours. 
Let  Harvard  and  Yale  take  what  position  they  please, 
will  not  the  mechanic  on  the  Merrimack  think  what 
he  pleases?  What  are  Harvard  and  Yale  to  him? 
But  your  skilled  operative  knows  here,  and  he  knows 
a  great  deal  better  in  Germany,  that  the  specialist 
who  has  honestly  won  his  rank  is  the  authority  to 
which  he  ought  to  listen,  after  a  fair  weighing  of  evi- 
dence for  himself;  and,  now  that  the  specialists  in 
religious  science  in  the  universities  have  changed  pos- 
ture in  Germany,  we  shall  ultimately  find  all  German 
thought  changing  posture. 

That  change  will  affect  this  shore  also.  Where 
the  old  wave  of  German  rationalism,  smiting  on  the 
strand  of  individualism  in  American  democracy, 
lifted  up  Parker  and  much  else,  we  shall  have  an  in- 
tuitional and  physiological  and  biblical  philosophy 
smiting  the  shore  here,  as  well  as  in  Germany.  Par- 
ker looked  far  less  deeply  than  Dorner  and  Miiller 
have  done  into  the  axioms  of  the  nature  of  things. 
Ultimately,  when  popular  education  has  been  lifted 
high  enough,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  that,  in  the  name  of  self- 


342  OBTHODOXY. 

evident  truth,  we  shall  forget  many  negations,  and 
take  the  great  organizing  religious  propositions  scien- 
tifically established  concerning  the  natural  laws  of 
conscience,  into  that  inestimably  precious  body  of 
scholarship,  which  age  after  age  has  considered 
sound ;  and  so  we  shall  found  our  philosophy  and  our 
religion  on  those  reefs  of  axiomatic  self-evident  truths, 
which  say  to  all  attacking  surges,  "Aha,  thus  far 
and  no  farther."  [Applause.] 

As  we  use  axioms  in  mathematical  science  and  in 
physical,  so  we  must  employ  axioms  in  religious  sci- 
ence. The  axioms  of  religious  science  are  no  more  in 
danger  of  going  out  of  date  than  those  of  mathemati- 
cal science.  It  is  axiomatic  theology  which  this  Lec- 
tureship has  taught.  It  is  a  theology  of  axioms,  it  is 
a  religious  science  based  on  the  nature  of  things,  it 
is  self-evident  truth,  upon  which  I  have  endeavored 
to  plant  my  small  fortune.  It  is  in  the  name  of  self- 
evident  truth  that  I  for  one,  on  this  reef  of  American 
individualism,  and  this  stormy  coast  of  Boston,  sleep 
well.  But  I  do  not  always  sleep.  The  moon  is  in 
the  sky;  and  it  heralds  the  coming  sun.  In  the 
starry  concave  of  axioms,  the  conscience,  which  has 
in  it  deep  presentiments  of  the  necessity,  not  only 
of  a  new  birth,  but  of  the  Atonement,  and  which 
never  yet  has  been  adequately  investigated  by  evan- 
gelical, and  never  outlined  —  I  had  almost  said  — 
by  merely  rationalistic  thought,  is  the  moon  in  the 
firmament  of  reason.  When  I  gaze  upon  the  orb  of 
scientific,  ethical  knowledge,  which  in  our  age  is  no 
longer  a  crescent,  I  remember,  not  infrequently,  that 


SOURCES  OF  THEODORE  PARKER'S  ERRORS.    343 

the  eagles  in  the  tropics,  so  bright  is  the  moon  at  the 
full,  sometimes  in  the  midnight  ruffle  their  pinions," 
and  make  ready  to  move  aloft,  as  they  do  occasion- 
ally from  ^Etna's  and  Vesuvius'  top,  thinking  that 
the  day  has  come!  Self-evident  truths,  axioms  — 
they  will  not  go  out  of  date  in  mathematics.  They 
will  not  go  out  of  date  in  theology.  "We  must  teach 
all  men  to  believe  in  religious  axioms,  as  we  have 
taught  some  to  believe  in  mathematical.  We  must 
gaze  on  the  stars  and  the  moon,  if  we  do  not  wait 
for  the  sun,  or  a  knowledge  of  man's  whole  nature, 
to  rise.  But  he  who  waiteth  for  the  sun  will  not  be 
disappointed. 

The  Koran  says,  that  when  Abraham  set  out  on  his 
travels,  he  was  insufficiently  acquainted  with  religious 
truth.  He  saw  the  star  of  evening,  and  said  to  his 
followers,  "  This  is  my  God."  But  the  star  went  down, 
and  Abraham  exclaimed,  "I  care  not  for  any  gods 
which  set."  He  waited  until  the  constellations  ap- 
peared, and  then  said,  "  These  are  my  Gods."  But 
the  galaxies  were  carried  beneath  the  west ;  and  he 
cried  aloud,  "  I  care  not  for  gods  which  set."  When 
the  moon  uprose,  he  said,  "  This  is  my  God."  But 
the  moon,  too,  went  down.  When  the  sun  uprose,  he 
saluted  it  as  divine ;  but  the  wheeling  sky  carried  the 
king  of  day  behind  the  flaming  pines  of  the  west. 
And  Abraham  in  the  holy  twilight,  turning  his  face 
toward  the  assenting  azure,  said  to  his  people,  "  I 
give  myself  to  Him  who  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come, 
Father  of  the  stars  and  moon  and  sun,  and  who  never 
sets,  because  He  is  the  Eternal  Noon."  [Applause.] 


A     000  051  967     8 


